Recently, there has been a trend in world science towards the development of quantitative methods for assessing the effectiveness of research activities. One such indicator is the h-index. You can find out what the Hirsch index is, how it is used in practical terms, and whether there are ways to increase it, from this article.
Description
The Hirsch index (abbreviated h-index) is one of the scientometric indicators that allows you to quantify journalistic productivity. The object of such an assessment can be both individual researchers, and scientific, educational organizations, as well as journals. This parameter was developed in 2005 by physicist Jorge Hirsch of the University of California.
In the official definition of this indicator, the following interpretation is given, which makes it possible to understand what the Hirsch index is:
A scientist has an index h if h from his N p articles are cited at least h times each, while the remaining (N p -h) articles are cited no more than h times each.
This criterion was introduced in order to analyze the relevance of scientific works, taking into account their citation in the works of other scientists. A simple quantitative calculation cannot serve as an indicator of the quality of activity, since it is a consequence of only the capacity for work, but not the practical value of the research. To determine what the Hirsch index is, there must be an array of scientific publications (abstract databases), which will be used for sampling and calculation of the indicator.
Simple examples
When calculating this criterion, not only citations are taken into account, but also the number of scientific publications. Here are simple examples that demonstrate what the Hirsch index is:
- An author has an index of 8 if he has 8 publications that are cited in the works of other scientists at least 8 times. Articles with less citation do not count.
- If 20 articles are published, but each of them has only 1 link, the indicator is also 1.
- If the scientist published 1 fundamental work, which was quoted by other researchers 100 times, then in this case this scientometric indicator is equal to unity.
There is a simple way to determine the Hirsch index:
- You must arrange all your publications in a column in descending order of citation.
- The line where the serial number of the article and the number of citations coincide shows the value of the h-index (Hirsch index = h articles cited at least h times). After determining the found value, the remaining lines are no longer involved in the calculation.
- It must be taken into account that the parameter is calculated according to a specific database, therefore it will differ in different arrays of publications.
Significance of the indicator
Abroad, a high Hirsch citation index is not only a subject of pride, but also an opportunity to obtain a number of privileges in the scientific community:
- invitation to work in large research centers;
- allocation of funding to scientific and educational institutions;
- grants and scholarships.
This parameter is used for strategic planning of scientific research, evaluating the activities of organizations and solving questions about their financing.
Scientists rating
If the value of the Hirsch index is a value greater than 20, then this is sufficient for admission to the American Physical Society. Russian science has its own relative evaluation criteria: for doctors of science, the h-index should be 7-10, and for researchers of international level - above 16.
For comparison, the h-index of theoretical physicist Stephen Hawking is 62, and the mathematician Galois, who died at the age of 20, has only 4.
Citation Systems
Currently, there are many bibliographic databases (DBs) that can be used to evaluate citation. The most recognized of them are:
- Scopus. Supported by one of the world's largest scientific publishing houses Elsevier. Indexing is carried out on more than 25,000 scientific publications, the supported language is English.
- Web of Science. It is part of the larger ISI Web of Knowledge web platform (Thomson Reuters media company). She is considered the most authoritative database of journal articles in the world. It has accumulated information taken from 10 thousand journals and 150 thousand scientific conferences in all fields of science. The working language is also English. Scopus and Web of Science have a rigorous publication verification policy. Retrospective for natural science publications - until 1900, for social sciences - until 1956, for art - until 1975.
- Google Scholar It is a free search engine for the full texts of articles. The project began work in 2004. It is formed from publications of journals of the largest scientific publishing houses in Europe and America.
Hirsch Index for RSCI: how to find out?
In Russia, the h-index and other scientometric criteria are evaluated by the Russian Science Citation Index (RSCI), organized in 2005 on the basis of the Scientific Electronic Library. More than 5,000 Russian and foreign magazines are freely available on the RSCI portal. The total number of scientific articles is about 3 million, there are also articles by Russian scientists published in the Scopus database (since 1996), dissertations, monographs, FIPS patents (since 1994). Every day there is a replenishment of several thousand new publications. All information is provided to registered users free of charge, it is possible to subscribe to electronic versions of scientific journals.
There is a simple technique for finding out the Hirsch index by RSCI:
- on the web platform site, you must open the "Authors Index" section, which is located in the "Navigator" menu;
- enter the name of the scientist without initials, if necessary - additional data (city, organization, country, subject, personal identifier);
- click on the icon "Analysis of the publication activity of the author."
As a result, statistics of general indicators, including the h-index, will open. It is also possible to generate a report on several parameters.
H-index increase
There are several ways to increase the Hirsch index:
- Post publications in foreign and domestic scientific journals indexed in the above databases. Currently, foreign databases contain about 400 Russian publications.
- Indicate in the articles a full list of references, including previous own works, on the basis of which the study was conducted, refer to the work of colleagues.
- Compose quality abstract articles for publications to attract the attention of other authors.
- Provide open access to their work.
- Send out copies of your publications to colleagues in this field of research for mutual citation.
- Register in the RSCI and in the SCIENCE INDEX system, which will allow you to send manuscripts in electronic form to the editors of scientific journals.
Currently, there are also many organizations offering appropriate services: they suggest increasing the Hirsch index through joint mutually beneficial quotations from authors of related fields, paid publication, and artificially high quoting, but many of them are engaged in dishonest activities.
disadvantages
Many people know what the Hirsch index is, but are not aware of its negative aspects. Despite its practical value, the h-index has a number of disadvantages:
- A low value of the indicator may indicate that the ideas presented to scientists are ahead of the existing stage of development of science and technology. Inability to account for breakthrough research.
- For young scientists, the Hirsch index cannot be large, although it is for them that quantitative indicators are most important for promotion and financing. A short career also leads to an incorrect assessment of the importance of scientific work.
- The indicator works well only when evaluating researchers working in the same field. Citation in biology and medicine is much higher than in physics and mathematics.
- The role of co-authors is not taken into account.
- When indexing, the calculation also includes those links that are subjected to critical evaluation in this scientific work.
Metric Manipulation
Raising the Hirsch index can be achieved by speculative methods:
- custom citation (posting articles by young scientists citing other works, mentioning works in research by graduate students and junior research workers);
- self-citation - when the author points to his own works in all publications;
- anti-citation - reference to a publication in the context of its criticism.
According to some scientists, the desire to increase scientometric indicators leads to the fact that researchers begin to work not to improve the quality of their work, but to find ways to deceive the structures involved in indexing. As a result, the emasculation of science, the leveling of its fundamental, applied content and the slowdown in the development of innovative technologies may occur.
In domestic science, there are already precedents when unscrupulous employees artificially wind up the Hirsch index by posting links to their works in works that have nothing to do with the problems being studied. Despite all its shortcomings, there are currently no more effective ways to evaluate the journalistic activity of scientists, and the Hirsch index remains one of the main tools of scientometrics.