H-index
Olivier B. Bommel
Some people believe that they can measure the impact one has in science by a number: the so-called h-index (**). Funny enough there are zillions of variants of that ‘exact number’.
What is the H-Index?
Well… for instance if one has 430 publications and 56 have been cited at least 56 times, then your h-index is 56.
Using www.harzing.com and the publish or perish tool or google scholar I seem to have an h-index of 61.
Personally I consider this too one-dimensional, what about the actual number of publications? Why not also consider the product #citations x #publications x #impactfactor of the journal per publication. Also the impact through invited and keynote lectures, documentaries etc. seems to me equally relevant. Or just forget about such information poor metrics.
Did anybody recently actually read Bertrand Russel’s famous ‘The Impact of Science on Society’ ? Here is a nice recent paper discussing the none-sense of the H-index by franck Laloë and Remy Mosseri in EuroPhysics News.
Well I guess this is an on-going battle…
Mr Olivier B. Bommel is quoted for saying:
“Real gentleman do not have a number”
Or even better in Dutch:
“Heren zet men niet op hun nummer”
What is the H-Index?
Well… for instance if one has 430 publications and 56 have been cited at least 56 times, then your h-index is 56.
Using www.harzing.com and the publish or perish tool or google scholar I seem to have an h-index of 61.
Personally I consider this too one-dimensional, what about the actual number of publications? Why not also consider the product #citations x #publications x #impactfactor of the journal per publication. Also the impact through invited and keynote lectures, documentaries etc. seems to me equally relevant. Or just forget about such information poor metrics.
Did anybody recently actually read Bertrand Russel’s famous ‘The Impact of Science on Society’ ? Here is a nice recent paper discussing the none-sense of the H-index by franck Laloë and Remy Mosseri in EuroPhysics News.
Well I guess this is an on-going battle…
Mr Olivier B. Bommel is quoted for saying:
“Real gentleman do not have a number”
Or even better in Dutch:
“Heren zet men niet op hun nummer”