A model for the Hirsch index

[Quentin L. Burrell]

Hirsch's h-index: a preliminary stochastic model
Quentin L Burrell

Paper to be presented at the 9th International Conference on Science and
Technology Indicators: "New Challenges in Quantitative Science and
Technology Research", 
Leuven, Belgium, 7-9 September, 2006.

The fully developed version of this presentation will appear as a paper
in the new Journal of Informetrics in due course. A preprint version will be available
 following the conference. 
Preprint requests should be addressed to the author at q.burrell at ibs.ac.im

Abstract
We propose a simple stochastic model for an author's production/citation
process in order to investigate the recently proposed h-index for
measuring an author's research output and its impact. The parametric model
distinguishes between an author's publication process and the subsequent
citation processes of the published papers. This allows us to investigate
different scenarios such as varying the production/publication rates and
citation rates as well as the researcher's career length. We are able to
draw tentative results regarding the dependence of Hirsch's h-index on
each of these fundamental parameters. We conjecture that the h-index is,
according to this model, (approximately) linear in career length, log
publication rate and log citation rate, at least for moderate citation
rates.

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Dr Quentin L Burrell
Isle of Man International Business School
The Nunnery, Old Castletown Road, Douglas, Isle of Man IM2 1QB, via United Kingdom
Tel. +44(0)1624 693706     Website www.ibs.ac.im
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