ERIC Number: EJ993910
Record Type: Journal
Publication Date: 2012
Pages: 3
Abstractor: ERIC
ISBN: N/A
ISSN: ISSN-1536-6367
EISSN: N/A
Impact, "H", and Authorship
Haslam, Nick
Measurement: Interdisciplinary Research and Perspectives, v10 n3 p161-163 2012
Ruscio and colleagues (Ruscio, Seaman, D'Oriano, Stremlo, & Mahalchik, this issue) have done a great service by systematically comparing indices of scholarly impact. Three aspects of their work are particularly valuable: (1) Their assessment of the proliferating collection of metrics, whose development has become something of a cottage industry, is comprehensive in scope; (2) Their evaluation of the merits of the 22 metrics employs a broad range of criteria--pragmatic as well as intrinsic, and relevant to fairness as well as accuracy--rather than focusing narrowly on scientometric considerations; and (3) Ruscio et al. have conducted two substantial empirical investigations on which their conclusions rest. The resulting evaluation should be influential well beyond the disciplinary boundaries of psychology. Perhaps the clearest practical message of the target article is the preeminence of the "h" index. Although barely 7 years old, "h" has acquired an air of age and authority. As the pool of competing indices has grown in reaction to it, the issue of impact assessment has rapidly become too technical for the nonspecialist. Deciding which among them are superior has become a crucial priority. The author believes the target article justifies the strong claim that "h" should be the default index for assessing the citation impact of individual scientists. Establishing a single index as the lingua franca of impact assessment would have practical benefits, and Ruscio et al.'s work supports doing so. Needless to say, other indices may have their place when there are strong reasons not to prefer the default index. The only issue on which the author disagrees with the target article relates to the desirability of adjusting for shared authorship (i.e., number of coauthors and position on the author list) when assessing scholarly impact.
Descriptors: Psychology, Authors, Measurement, Outcome Measures, Scholarship, Bibliometrics, Citations (References), Evaluation Methods, Evaluation Criteria, Evaluation Problems, Measurement Techniques, Periodicals, Productivity, Researchers, Scientific Research, Citation Indexes, Statistical Analysis
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Publication Type: Journal Articles; Opinion Papers
Education Level: N/A
Audience: N/A
Language: English
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