Academicians’ research impact is like the result of their yearly or quarterly work. It is important to make your work recognizable to stay ahead in your career. There are various Journal database indices that gives a measure of quality work on the basis of their citations. With the increasing number of social media generated platforms, H index is gaining popularity. Let’s have a look on H index and how it could make you stand out of the crowd.
H Index- What, when and how: H Index full form is Hirsch index given by Jorge E. Hirsch in 2005. It is an author level citation index and measures a researchers’ contribution with the help of publications and their citations. It can be calculated as h number of publications that has been cited at lease h times each. For example if an author has 8 publications cited at least 8 times each then H index of the author will be 8.
H Index Calculation: Scopus, Google Scholar and web of science are most common platforms to calculate your respective H Index
H Index verses Journal Indices: Journal impact factor is based on the common citations of that particular journal which is composed of articles from different authors. While H index is the citation measure of an individual researchers’ work during his career. Thus, H index is more appropriate while defining the importance of a researcher as compared to journal impact factor.
H index Presentation: H index could be calculated from different sources and one which show highest should be presented. (H index do vary while calculating with different resources) But clearly write the source through which you have calculated your H index to authenticate it.
Loopholes with H index: H index is a powerful measure in itself when addressing research impact of individual researcher but it do have some loopholes. H Index usually supports researchers with high number of publications as a researcher with 15 years of experience might have 15 papers with 15 citations and thus represents his H index as 15. On the other side for a fresher or new comer this become crucial he might have published only 3 papers in 3 years of his career and all the three papers have 15 citations then also he will get H index of 3 only. The H index counts as per publication not as the status of the author like he is first author, second or third as a result all the authors gain same numbers from the particular publication.
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