Open Access Library Journal

Volume 4, Issue 10 (October 2017)

ISSN Print: 2333-9705   ISSN Online: 2333-9721

Google-based Impact Factor: 1.18  Citations  

A “Citation Surplus” Should Be Added to the h-Index

HTML  XML Download Download as PDF (Size: 540KB)  PP. 1-5  
DOI: 10.4236/oalib.1103959    598 Downloads   1,498 Views  
Author(s)

ABSTRACT

The h-index is the largest number h such that h publications have at least h citations. The index reflects both the number of publications and the number of citations per publication. One unperceived deficiency of this metric is that it is Pareto-inefficient. A “citation surplus” would be absent and, thus, the h-index would be efficient for a researcher if all his h papers that are equal or above his h-index received exactly h citations. This inefficiency would not be of great concern if those h papers were normally distributed. However, the rank from top to bottom does not decay exponentially. The decay follows the power law known in the literature as Lotka’s law. To remedy this deficiency, I suggest the h-index be supplemented by a researcher’s citation surplus.

Share and Cite:

Silva, S. (2017) A “Citation Surplus” Should Be Added to the h-Index. Open Access Library Journal, 4, 1-5. doi: 10.4236/oalib.1103959.

Cited by

No relevant information.

Copyright © 2024 by authors and Scientific Research Publishing Inc.

Creative Commons License

This work and the related PDF file are licensed under a Creative Commons Attribution 4.0 International License.