Research Impact
Librarian
Author impact
Traditionally, an author's impact is measured by using the number of times his/her academic publication is cited by other researchers (also known as citation metric). This citation metric is then used to determine the impact and productivity of a researcher. The most common author metric that uses citation metric is the h-index.
Author level metric overview
Adapted from:
Colosimo, April. "Concept Map." Impact Measurements: Author-level metrics. McGill University. n.d. Web. 27 Aug. 2020.
Author level metrics
Author level metrics measure the impact and productivity of a researcher. The most common metric is the H-index which is often used as a “yardstick” to measure and compare researchers and scholars. The H-index was created by physicist Hirsh in 2015 to give “an estimate of the importance, significance and broad impact of a scientist’s cumulative research contributions … A scientist has index h if h of his or her Np papers have at least h citations each and the other (Np -h) papers have ≤ h citations each” (Hirsh, 2015). This calculation combines two variables to attribute impact to a researcher: the number of publications, and the number of citations.
The H-index is calculated based on a list of publications ranked in descending order by the times cited where the value of h is equal to the number of papers n in the list that have n or more citations. This is meaningful when compared to others within the same discipline. Note, researchers in one field may have very different h-indices than researchers in another. To calculate an h-index manually, list the number of publications by a researcher in order, and locate the number of articles in the list (h) that have received at least h citations (see table below).
To locate the h-index of a publishing researcher, search by author in Google Scholar, Scopus, or Web of Science. Ensure the author you are looking for is the right author by checking for affiliations and publications. The h-index will be listed on the author's profile.
Example: The h-index of Author X, who has 8 publications listed in order of number of citations, is 5, where Np ≤ h.
|
Article rank (Np) |
Number of citations (h) |
|
1 |
10 |
|
2 |
9 |
|
3 |
8 |
|
4 |
6 |
|
5 |
5 |
|
6 |
4 |
|
7 |
2 |
|
8 |
0 |
Which h-index should you use?
Keep in mind database coverage affects which of the author’s publications are captured by that specific database. Google Scholar, Scopus, and Web of Science all have different coverage of journals and publications. For instance, the h-index you see for Author X in Google Scholar will be different from the h-index you see in Scopus. Most h-indexes you find will disregard monographs, book chapters, proceedings papers, and other non-article publications. To ensure you capture the most accurate h-index, check the list of publications included in the h-index calculation.
Despite the wide use of the h-index for promotions/tensureships/hires in academe, there are many challenges with the use of h-index.
- Disregards publications outside
- Disregards citations above
- Inability to assess early career researchers
- Hirsch’s definition of scientists after 20 years of publishing is arbitrary for some disciplines
- h=20: successful researcher
- h=40: outstanding researcher
- h=60: unique researcher
- Lack of field normalization (i.e., hard to compare across disciplines and specialties)
- Does not indicate quality and worthiness
To combat challenges related to the h-index, scholars have created other author metrics. However, these metrics also use the same citation data as the h-index and as a consequence also suffers from some of the same issues.
- M-quotient
- Proposed by Hirsch in 2005 to account for early career and junior researchers
- G-index
- A variant of the h-index that, in its calculation, gives credit for the most highly cited papers in a data set
- i10-index
- An alternative metric developed by Google Scholar that measures the number of publications with at least 10 citations
Please contact the Research Communications Librarian for more information.
Increase your author impact
Increase the impact of your research by building an online presence to make it easy for researchers, scholars, students, organizations, funding bodies, and other knowledge users to find you and your publications. This ensures your research is available to the widest possible audience and improves its discoverability and engagement. To build your online presence, distinguish you and your research and professional activities by claiming an ORCID iD. ORCID is an open, non-profit, international registry of unique and persistent identifiers for individual researchers. It's the preferred way to link identifiers with researchers' outputs and activities. For more information on ORCIDs and how to register for one, see our ORCID guide.
Key resources and tools for authors and collaborators
- ScopusSelect "Authors" above the search bar, to search by name or ORCID iD. Select the author to view citation overview.
- Web of ScienceClick on the "Author Search" tab to locate an author by name or ORCID iD. Select the author in the results to view the author record. Highly cited authors are included in Essential Science Indicators in Web of Science. Author profiles are also available to view for those with a Publons account.
- Google Scholar
Enables you to search specifically for scholarly literature, including peer-reviewed papers, theses, books, preprints, abstracts and technical reports from all broad areas of research.
- DimensionsLinks authors to publications, clinical trials, patents, grants, datasets, and policy documents while tracking citation metrics.
- ImpactStoryCreate an ImpactStory profile to see how often you are cited, saved by scholars, or discussed by the public.
- ResearchGateCreate a profile on ResearchGate to stay connected with other researchers and capture metrics based on your contributions, interactions, and reputation.
- Academic.eduSimilar to ResearchGate, Academic.edu allows you to create an account to connect with other researchers while capturing analytics on your profile and your individual papers.