What do we know about the h index?

✍ Scribed by Lutz Bornmann; Hans-Dieter Daniel

• Publisher: John Wiley and Sons
• Year: 2007
• Tongue: English
• Weight: 220 KB
• Volume: 58
• Category: Article
• ISSN: 1532-2882
• DOI: 10.1002/asi.20609

✦ Synopsis

Abstract

Jorge Hirsch (2005a, 2005b) recently proposed the h index to quantify the research output of individual scientists. The new index has attracted a lot of attention in the scientific community. The claim that the h index in a single number provides a good representation of the scientific lifetime achievement of a scientist as well as the (supposed) simple calculation of the h index using common literature databases lead to the danger of improper use of the index. We describe the advantages and disadvantages of the h index and summarize the studies on the convergent validity of this index. We also introduce corrections and complements as well as single‐number alternatives to the h index.