FW: The Outgrow Index by Rousseau and Hu

[Ronald Rousseau]

Dear colleagues,

Thanks to Gene for his short analysis of our article. We completely  
agree with his analysis. Yet, our indicator is not meant to be used  
for evaluative purposes. It is rather meant as a way of positioning a  
paper (concretely with respect to its references).

As this position changes over time we have, in a follow-up paper,  
studied time series of outgrown indices.

Best regards,

Ronald Rousseau


>
>
>  The  Outgrow Index (OI)  suggested by Rousseau and Hu ranks a target
> paper by comparing its citation count to that of the papers it
> cites. If the target paper is cited more than each of the papers it
> cites,
> then its OI will be close to 1 (but always below 1). If the target paper
> is
> cited less than the papers it cites, the OI will be 0.
>
> It is very difficult if not  impossible to say whether  the OI is
> meaningful in estimating the importance of the target paper. A good and
> important publication may chance to cite a few citation classics. Then
> its OI will be low. If the target paper cites only descriptive papers
> (which are poorly cited), then its OI will be close to 1.
>
> Thus, the paper by  Rousseau and Hu suggest a quantitative insex based
> on the citation values of the target paper and the papers this target
> paper cites, but its meaning for evaluative purposes is  as yet
> uncertain
>
> Authors:
> Rousseau, Ronald
> Hu, Xiaojun
>
> Issue Date: Sep-2010 pages 288-291
>
> Publisher: NISCAIR-CSIR, India
>
> Abstract:
>
> Proposes a relative index measuring the amount by which an article
> outgrows, in terms of citations, the publications on which it is based.
> The study involves citations collected from Web of Science during the
> last week of April 2010 along with the number of citations received
> (also in WoS) by each of the references.
>
>
>
>
>
>
>
>



-- 
Ronald Rousseau
President of the ISSI
KHBO - Association K.U.Leuven
Industrial Sciences and Technology
Zeedijk 101 -  8400  Oostende,  Belgium
Professor associated to K.U.Leuven
Guest Professor Antwerp University, IBW
Honorary Professor Henan Normal University (Xinxiang, China)
Adjunct professor of Shanghai University
Guest Professor at the National Library of Sciences CAS (Beijing)
Guest Professor at Dalian University of Technology
Honorary researcher at Zhejiang University, Information Resources Management
Institute
E-mail: ronald.rousseau at khbo.be
web page:  http://users.telenet.be/ronald.rousseau

Technical skill is mastery of complexity
while creativity is mastery of simplicity (E.C. Zeeman)

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