Redner, S. 2010. On the meaning of the h-index. JOURNAL OF STATISTICAL MECHANICS-THEORY AND EXPERIMENT: art. no.-L03005.

[Eugene Garfield]

Redner, S. 2010. On the meaning of the h-index. JOURNAL OF STATISTICAL 
MECHANICS-THEORY AND EXPERIMENT: art. no.-L03005.

Author Full Name(s): Redner, S.

Language: English
Document Type: Article

Abstract: The h-index-defined as the value such that an individual has 
published at least h papers with at least h citations-has become a popular 
metric for assessing the citation impact of scientists. As already noted in the 
original work of Hirsch and as evidenced from data for a representative sample 
of 255 physicists, root c scales as h, where c is the total number of citations 
for an individual. Thus root c appears to be equivalent to the h-index. As a 
further check of this equivalence, the distribution of the ratio s equivalent to 
root c/2h for this sample is sharply peaked about 1. The outliers in this 
distribution reveal fundamentally different kinds of individual publication records.

Addresses: [Redner, S.] Boston Univ, Ctr Polymer Studies, Boston, MA 02215 
USA; [Redner, S.] Boston Univ, Dept Phys, Boston, MA 02215 USA

Reprint Address: Redner, S, Boston Univ, Ctr Polymer Studies, Boston, MA 
02215 USA.

E-mail Address: redner at buphy.bu.edu

ISSN: 1742-5468
DOI: 10.1088/1742-5468/2010/03/L03005
URL: http://iopscience.iop.org/1742-5468/2010/03/L03005
Fulltext: http://iopscience.iop.org/1742-5468/2010/03/L03005/pdf/1742-
5468_2010_03_L03005.pdf