Is there a place for a mock h-index?

Abstract

The h-index has captured the imagination of scientometricians and bibliometricians to such an extent that one can now divide the history of the subject virtually into a pre-Hirsch and a post-Hirsch period. Beyond its academic value, it is now used as a tool for research assessment of individuals, research faculties and institutions and even for comparing performance of journals and countries. Since its introduction, many Hirsch-type variants have been proposed to overcome perceived limitations of the original index. In this paper, using ideas from mathematical modeling, another mock h-index is proposed which may complement the h-index and give it better resolving power.

Big Names in Innovation Research:A Bibliometric Overview

“…Note that the ranking presented in Table 1 may be ordered by other criteria, which would change the position of each author in the list. If we order by the number of citations that each researcher obtains or by the pindex 36,37 , David J. Teece, who appears in sixth place in Table 1, with an h-index of 21, would be in first place in the ranking. On the other hand, Ulrich Lichtenthaler (19th place) or Michael Song (14th place) would occupy the top positions in ranking if we order by the number of publications in innovation research, and no citations or hindex.…”

Qualifying Scholarly Impact using an iCX (impact-Citations-Exergy) Analysis

“…This simplification of a very complex process has been found to be very effective, especially in instances where h tends to be high. It also has many shortcomings especially when h tends to be low or where there are tall cores or long tails [2][3][4] . The search for a rational strategy to rank entities (authors, groups, institutions, or countries) taking into account productivity (number of papers P) and quality (impact defined as the ratio of citations to papers, i = C/P) continues.…”

“…The search for a rational strategy to rank entities (authors, groups, institutions, or countries) taking into account productivity (number of papers P) and quality (impact defined as the ratio of citations to papers, i = C/P) continues. Prathap 2 proposed a composite indicator (C 2 /P) 1/3 , which could mock the features of the h-index and having the same dimensions as h and P, connecting the number of papers and the mean citation rate per paper. Thus, (C 2 /P) 1/3 = (C.(C/P)) 1/ 3 is an indicator that senses both size and quality.…”

“…The proxy for the energy of ideas turns out to be X = Pi 2 , where, P is measured in the units in which ideas are conveyed (here, the number of papers) and i is a measure of the rate at which ideas are transmitted as citations (here, a proxy for quality i = C/P). It is more appropriate to call this energy-like term, exergy (as a useful externally available energy, rather than the total internal energy).…”

“…Very interestingly, taking a lead from Glanzel's pioneering statistical studies, it can also be established that X (1/3) = p has the units of h and indeed can be used as a mock h-index [2][3][4] . In this paper, it is shown that i, C, and X can be combined graphically into an iCX map which can then be displayed as a two dimensional contour map which reproduces the essential topological features of …”