Scientific Production and Productivity for Characterizing an Author’s Publication History: Simple and Nested Gini’s and Hirsch’s Indexes Combined

Abstract

In this study, I developed operational versions of Gini’s and Hirsch’s indexes that can be applied to characterize each researcher’s publication history (PH) as heterodox, orthodox, and interdisciplinary. In addition, the new indicators warn against anomalies that potentially arise from tactical or opportunistic citation and publication behaviors by authors and editors, and can be calculated from readily available information. I split the original Hirsch index into nested indexes to isolate networking activity, as well as to distinguish scientific production (number of articles) from scientific productivity (rate of production), and used nested Gini indexes to identify intentional and successful intertopical and interdisciplinary research. I applied the most popular standardizations (i.e., per author and per year), and used simple methodologies (i.e., least-squares linear and cubic fitting, whole-career vs. subperiods, two-dimensional graphs). I provide three representative numerical examples based on an orthodox multidisciplinary PH, a heterodox PH from the social sciences, and an orthodox unidisciplinary PH from the physical sciences. Two additional numerical examples based on PHs from the life and health sciences show that the suggested PH characterization can be applied to different disciplines where different publication and citation practices prevail. Software is provided to help readers explore the use of these indicators.

Coping with the Inequity and Inefficiency of the H-Index: A Cross-Disciplinary Empirical Analysis

“…To the best of our knowledge, few papers (e.g., [1,2]) suggest an index to evaluate interdisciplinary CVs (i.e., authors applying usual methodologies to unusual topics or vice versa). In particular, Zagonari [1] identifies the interdisciplinary percentage of any CV (i.e., articles in a discipline or subject quoted by articles in different disciplines or subjects) to be applied to the H-index characterising each author, where the H-index is chosen as an easily generated quantitative index.…”

“…To the best of our knowledge, few papers (e.g., [1,2]) suggest an index to evaluate interdisciplinary CVs (i.e., authors applying usual methodologies to unusual topics or vice versa). In particular, Zagonari [1] identifies the interdisciplinary percentage of any CV (i.e., articles in a discipline or subject quoted by articles in different disciplines or subjects) to be applied to the H-index characterising each author, where the H-index is chosen as an easily generated quantitative index. However, this interdisciplinary index requires a homogeneous H-index across disciplines or subjects to avoid gains for some interdisciplinary scientists (e.g., across medicine and computing) and losses for other interdisciplinary scientists (e.g., across art and mathematics) [3].…”

“…Within the recent empirical literature on indexes for interdisciplinary science (e.g., [11]), the purpose of this paper is to statistically test to what extent the suggested improvements of the H-indexes [9], considered as top-down regulations, account for different publication and citation habits characterising different disciplines and subjects in order to enable suitable comparisons of interdisciplinary scientists [1] across disciplines and subjects. To do so, we suggest some measures of inefficiency and inequity in Section 2.…”

“…Note that Zagonari [9] does not include H 4 and H 5 . Moreover, Zagonari [1] shows that interdisciplinary science requires an additional category, together with orthodox science (i.e., authors publish in a single discipline and in many journals, and the vast majority of the citations are in few disciplines but in many different journals) and heterodox science (i.e., authors publish in a single discipline and in a few journals devoted to that discipline, so that the vast majority of citations are in few disciplines and few journals), to be combined with H 5 to reduce unfair rankings between interdisciplinary scientists (i.e., authors publish in many disciplines and journals, and the vast majority of citations are in many different disciplines and journals) across different disciplines as well as between interdisciplinary scientists and single-discipline scientists collaborating with many authors from different disciplines. Finally, Zagonari [9] does not include quantitative results based on linear regressions or parameter estimations.…”

Social benefits and individual costs of creativity in art and science: A statistical analysis based on a theoretical framework

“…Note that we have not included interdisciplinary research, which we define as research conducted across scientific disciplines or across artistic and scientific domains [ 8 ], since such work has been relatively scarce [ 9 ] or has been unreliably evaluated [ 10 ]; it has also been rarely funded [ 11 ]. However, Zeng et al [ 12 ] have recently shown that success in science (in terms of the average citations per paper) is negatively correlated with writing about diverse topics.…”