Research evaluation of author’s citation-based performance through the relative author superiority index

Abstract

The aim of this paper is to further explore the recent conversation about the indicators for research evaluation through citation-based indexes. It evaluates the Cuban Biotechnology; Applied Microbiology researchers’ citation-based performance, according to their scientific production in journals of the ISI Web of Science database through the Relative Author Superiority Index. The methodology comprises six steps: (1) preparation of the data; (2) calculation of the Percentile Rank Index for each of the papers; (3) calculation of the Author Superiority Index for each of the authors; (4) Calculation of the Relative Author Superiority Index; (5) Comparison of the Author Superiority Index of each author to their Hirsch (H) and G citation indexes and (6) individual or group evaluation of the citation-based performance. The findings suggest that the group of Cuban researchers in biotechnology achieved a high citation-based performance within the analyzed period. The results show the effectiveness of this index to assess the citation performance of individual or group researchers when the impact factor of the researcher or group under evaluation is not high. In addition, the Relative Author Superiority index could be complementary to other previous indicators such as H-index, G-index or citation counts as it overcomes the limitations of the age of publications, length of the author’s career, and the self-citation problem that are present in other indicators.

High-ranked citations percentage as an indicator of publications quality

“…Many of the h-index modifications have been developed in order to overcome these drawbacks, such as g-index (Egghe 2006), crown index (Waltman et al 2011), entropy index (Silagadze 2010) and many others (Abdi and Williams 2010;Alonso et al 2009;Bornmann et al 2011;Mingers and Leydesdorff 2015;Ronda-Pupo 2017;Schreiber 2010;Schreiber et al 2012). Although the h-index is still debatable, it is very popular in the scientific community and its computation is currently provided by publication databases, such as WoS, Scopus and Google Scholar.…”

For a Model of Self-Citation Governance in Arquivos Brasileiros de Cardiologia

“…However, its validity as an indicator of scientific impact has been questioned due to, among others, self-promoting journal self-citation in attempt to increase their impact factor. 3 Overuse of self-citation practices is punishable, and caused the exclusion of 5 Brazilian journals from the JCR for one year (2013). 4 For this reason, efficient control measures of this practice should be developed and implemented by scientific journals that seek to adhere to ethical precepts recommended by the scientific community.…”