Module 13

Author Metrics-II
-Dr Ajay Semalty
Department of Pharmaceutical Sciences,
H.N.B. Garhwal University (A Central University)
Srinagar Garhwal-246174

We have discussed the various journal metrics various journal metrics like IF, 5Yr IF, AI,
CiteScore, Eigenfactor, ISI ranking, Altmetrics etc. and h index as one of the author metrics in
the previous modules. Now we will discuss some more important aspects of h index and rest of
the Author level metrics in this module.

Learning outcome

After completing this module you will be able to learn

About H Index and some more Author level metrics

Author ids

Lesson Plan

• Factors affecting h index

• Importance of h index across the discipline
• I10 index
• G index
• Author ids
• Miscellaneous metrics
 Module 13: Author Metrics II

Factors affecting h index

Let us begin the author level metrics. In continuation to our discussion of h index let us discuss
the factors affecting h index, the factors on which h index is dependent on.

• No. of papers published and citations: Higher the number of papers and citations
higher would be the h index.

• Subject and Field of research: Science researchers and allied disciplines generally have
higher h index than researchers of Arts and humanities .And within a same subject some
researchers working on hot topics are cited more than others.

• Presence of articles in impact and accessible journals: The easy access and broad
readership of a journal also increases citations and hence the h index.

• Stage of career: Obviously, a senior researcher would have higher h index than new
entrants or young researchers. Because he/she have published more number of papers as
compared to the fresh entrants of the area.

• Miscellaneous factors: Type of papers (methodological papers/ review papers),

innovative research papers etc.: The pioneer research work or review papers are cited
more. Like Hirsch’s 2005 paper being pioneer, is cited highly and hence plays a vital role
in improving h index.

h-index in Academic Recognition

In general higher the h index greater the researcher (in terms of productivity and citation impact).

It’s a direct and simple measure of comparing the potential of scientists of same field.

In biomedical sciences:

h index < no. of years of experience → Average/ Below Average Researcher

h index = no. of years of experience → Successful Researcher

h index > no. of years of experience → Outstanding/ Unique Researcher

h index give easy access to the potential or proficiency of the researcher.

Hirsch’s Observations: Career levels

• h-index: Disciplines and career levels

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MOOC: Academic Writing by Dr Ajay Semalty, HNB Garhwal University (A Central University)
Srinagar (Garhwal) Uttarakhand, India
 Module 13: Author Metrics II

If we see the H index for the scientist after 20 years of experience we can predict the level of
scientist.

Hirsch (Scientist h index Level of Scientist

Performance
after 20 years) 20 Successful
40 Outstanding
60 Truly unique
• Source: Wikipedia

h-index: Disciplines and career levels

Hirsch observed that for physicist, h index may be the indicator of level of scientist (As
mentioned in the first half of the table.) An h index of 12 indicates advancement to tenure; H
index 18 indicates full professorship; h index 15-20 indicates Fellowship in the American
Physical Society; h index 45 or above indicates the level of scientist as Membership in
the United States National Academy of Sciences. So the level of scientist is well indicated by the
h index.

Observer/ subject H index Inference

Hirsch (for physicist) 12 Advancement to tenure (Associate

Professor) at major research
universities

18 Full professorship

15–20 Fellowship in the American Physical

Society

45 or higher Membership in the United States

National Academy of Sciences

London School of Economics 2.8 (in law), A full professor in the social sciences
(Social Sciences) had an h-index about twice that of a
3.4 (in political science), lecturer or a senior lecturer, though the
difference was the smallest in
3.7 (in sociology),

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MOOC: Academic Writing by Dr Ajay Semalty, HNB Garhwal University (A Central University)
Srinagar (Garhwal) Uttarakhand, India
 Module 13: Author Metrics II

6.5 (in geography), geography

7.6 (in economics)

While London school of economics observed that the average index of faculty members of
different discipline were significantly different. It can be see that the h index was quite low in
social sciences for as compared to the researchers of sciences. It was 2.8 in law; 3.4 in political
science; 3.7 in sociology; 6.5 in geography and 7.6 in economics. It was also evident that a full
professor in the social sciences had an h-index about twice that of a lecturer or a senior lecturer,
though the difference was the smallest in geography (Source: Wikipedia).

Limitations

• The h-index doesn’t work well across fields, as publication and citation practices differ

• Databases coverage differ in publication sources and time range.

• Can be used only for comparing the same career stage and discipline.

• H index increases only and does not elicit the current impact/ potential of researcher. It
invariably increases even if author has stopped research/publications. (see h index of
Einstein …)

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MOOC: Academic Writing by Dr Ajay Semalty, HNB Garhwal University (A Central University)
Srinagar (Garhwal) Uttarakhand, India
 Module 13: Author Metrics II

Fig. 1. Goggle scholar profile page showing h index of Course Coordinator

• It favours older scientists

Summary (h Index)

• Get known by h index (Add it to your CV )

• Higher h index = more productivity and impact
• h index is the major benchmark used by the employers for selection/recruitment and/ or
assessment of Researchers.
• Higher h index is also an indicator of credibility of authors and it improves the
confidence of readers and researchers following the authors.

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MOOC: Academic Writing by Dr Ajay Semalty, HNB Garhwal University (A Central University)
Srinagar (Garhwal) Uttarakhand, India
 Module 13: Author Metrics II

i10 index

• i10 index refers to the number of paper with 10 or more

citations.

• It is h10 index with reference to authors…

• It is shown only in google scholar profile of authors

G index

• The g-index is an index for quantifying productivity in science, based on publication

record (an author-level metric).

• Suggested by Leo Egghe in 2006; Egghe observed the drawback of the H-index: it does
not take into account the citation scores of the top most cited articles; The G-Index is an
improvement of the H-index.

• The g-index gives more weight to highly-cited articles

• "[Given a set of articles] ranked in decreasing order of the number of citations that
they received, the g-index is the (unique) largest number such that the top g articles
received (together) at least g² citations."

Advantages of the G-Index:

• It considers the citations of top articles of authors.

• It helps to distinguish between the impact of two authors.

• The G-Index provides inflated values for providing credits on the basis of citations of
each paper. More credit for highly-cited papers are given.

Disadvantages of the G-Index:

• Still the debate is going on about the superiority of G-Index over H-Index.

• But still G index is not be as widely accepted as H-Index.

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MOOC: Academic Writing by Dr Ajay Semalty, HNB Garhwal University (A Central University)
Srinagar (Garhwal) Uttarakhand, India
 Module 13: Author Metrics II

Author/ researcher Ids

• Scopus Author Identifier

• Open Researcher and Contributor IDentifier - ORCID’

• Research Gate RG Score

• Misc. : Linkedin ID

Scopus Author Identifier

• Authors with publications indexed in Scopus are automatically assigned a Scopus Author
ID.

• “It is an algorithm running within the Scopus database which automatically assigns
papers to a unique author identifier using data such as addresses and subject areas.”

• Check whether your paper are there completely or not? If not add your papers. Check if
some other person’s articles are there in your profile? If yes remove them.

• Also check for possibility of presence of your multiple profiles in Scopus. It is possible
due to your multiple or old affiliations; for ladies due to change of sirname after
marriage,

• Authors can send feedback to Scopus and request to merge the multiple accounts, for
removing any errors and misattributions etc.

• The Scopus author preview can be checked freely

Finding Scopus Id

• Researchers, Faculty often need a Scopus Author identification number at time of

applying for jobs, grants etc.

Find your IDnumber at Scopus:

Step I: Go to Scopus Free Look Up page. https://www.scopus.com/freelookup/form/author.uri

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MOOC: Academic Writing by Dr Ajay Semalty, HNB Garhwal University (A Central University)
Srinagar (Garhwal) Uttarakhand, India
 Module 13: Author Metrics II

Step II: Type in your last name, first name or initials to locate your record (if you know your
ORCID id, just enter it)

Step III: Find your assigned number: Select the appropriate author record, and you can view
your Author Identification record.

Fig. Scopus profile showing Scopus Author id and other author metrics

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MOOC: Academic Writing by Dr Ajay Semalty, HNB Garhwal University (A Central University)
Srinagar (Garhwal) Uttarakhand, India
 Module 13: Author Metrics II

Summary

• Apart from h index (Hirsch Index), I 10 index is another author metrics; technically it is
H10 index; available only through google scholar
• Another Author metrics is G index, which focus on the highly cited articles for giving
due credit.
• Author ids are needed for presenting at the time of grant/job application, promotions and
for CV.
• Scopus author Id can be seen freely from Scopus free lookup page.
• You must get your scopus id and use it for your CV and as signature in your email id.
• It increases the impact of researcher.

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MOOC: Academic Writing by Dr Ajay Semalty, HNB Garhwal University (A Central University)
Srinagar (Garhwal) Uttarakhand, India
 Module 13: Author Metrics II

After covering the Scopus ID let us discuss some other author ids.

Open Researcher and Contributor IDentifier - ORCID

• The ORCID iD is a nonproprietary alphanumeric code. This serves to uniquely identify

authors and researchers.

• It is a platform-independent identifier which creates and maintain a registry of unique

researcher identifiers.

• Offers a transparent method of linking research activities and outputs to these persons.

• This ID also avoids name change and name similarity problem in giving credits

• Unique Author/ reviewer credits possible: To track down genuine reviewers and to give
credit to the reviewer ORCIDs are used.

• Fake authors/ reviewers can be avoided:

Getting ORCID

• Go to https://orcid.org/

• Register to get unique ORCID identifier. In Scopus, you need not to register. It is
automaticall there if you have published in any of the Scopus indexed journals. But here
you will have to register.

• Add your information (Enhance your ORCID record with your professional information
and link to your other identifiers such as Scopus or ResearcherID or LinkedIn)

• Use your ORCID ID: Include your ORCID identifier on your Webpage, when you submit
publications, apply for grants, and in any research workflow to ensure you get credit for
your work.

Research Gate RG Score

• ResearchGate is a kind of scientific social media. If you are a researcher you might be
using it frequently already. ResearchGate (founded in 2008 by a group of scientists) is a
social networking site for scientists and researchers to share research articles, and search
collaborations.

• It also acts as discussion forum on research issues.

• Each author has a unique profile there.

• RG Score is a single number that is attached to a researcher's profile.

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MOOC: Academic Writing by Dr Ajay Semalty, HNB Garhwal University (A Central University)
Srinagar (Garhwal) Uttarakhand, India
 Module 13: Author Metrics II

• “The RG Score measures scientific reputation based on how your work is received by
your peers.”

• RG Score focuses on authors and their interaction with peers.

• It is calculated once a week. RG Score is giving the current impact of the researcher on
weekly basis.

• Many critic don’t rely on RG score still due to several factors e.g. even the conference
abstracts, and unpublished data, paper can be loaded as dataset, self triggered discussion
may increase the score etc.

• RG Score is not totally dependent on your scholarly articles just the discussion may
trigger the RG Score.

Miscellaneous metrics

So many new metrics are coming day by day with the advent of new publishing groups and new
metrics from old publishing houses

Plum Analytics

This service aims to provide a more comprehensive measure of a researcher's scholarly impact
by gathering data about usage of data sets, open access publications, presentations, blogs and
other types of scholarly communication.

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MOOC: Academic Writing by Dr Ajay Semalty, HNB Garhwal University (A Central University)
Srinagar (Garhwal) Uttarakhand, India
 Module 13: Author Metrics II

SciVal

• Recently (in 2014) Elsevier introduces a new metrics SciVal®: an institute/

country/researcher’s performance indicator based on Scopus data.

• “SciVal, is the tool by Elsevier Research Intelligence. It delivers research performance

metrics, based on the Scopus database, for a large number of Universities and other
institutions in > 200 countries.”*

SciVal enables you to:

• Search for your Scopus profile

• Find your aspirational peers
• Select the metrics
• Benchmark yourself to demonstrate research excellence

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MOOC: Academic Writing by Dr Ajay Semalty, HNB Garhwal University (A Central University)
Srinagar (Garhwal) Uttarakhand, India
 Module 13: Author Metrics II

Take Away Message:

• Apart from h index, i10 index and G index are two other author metrics.

• I10 index is H10 index; number of papers cited at least 10 times

• G10 index is the modified form of h index to give credit to highly cited article.

• Scopus Id, ORCID and RG score are the author ids which you must utilize to showcase
your credentials for jobs, grants, promotion etc.

• Many other metrics are there like SciVal which is very useful due to their pragmatic
approach in eliciting the research performance of researcher, institute, country etc.

Further reading

• Hirsch, J. 2005. An index to quantify an individual's scientific research output – PNAS, Available
at http://www.pnas.org/content/102/46/16569.full.pdf
• Find your h index, https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=wmnqCge-h_M
• Indices of Research II : h-Index Part 1, https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=BAhPzxWVtVE
• ORCID and Scopus: Manage your author profile,
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=UJBq0f0Qnrs

References

• https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/H-index
• Hirsch JE, An index to quantify an individual's scientific research output, Proc Natl Acad Sci U S
A. 2005 Nov 15; 102(46): 16569–16572.
• Judit Bar-Ilan, Which h-index? — A comparison of WoS, Scopus and Google Scholar,
Scientometrics, 2008; 74(2): 257- 71.
• Bornmann L, Daniel HD, What do we know about the h index?, Journal of the Association for
Information Science & Technology, 2007; 58(9): 1381–1385
• Glänzel W, On the H‐index—a mathematical approach to a new measure of publication activity
and citation impact. Scientometrics, 2006; 67: 315–321
• https://www.scival.com/
• https://journalmetrics.scopus.com/index.php/Faqs
• Crotty D, Journal Metrics, Article III; Other Metrics: beyond the Impact Factor, Cardiopulse,
doi:10.1093/eurheartj/ehx446
• http://www.scopus.com
• http://www.elsevier.com

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MOOC: Academic Writing by Dr Ajay Semalty, HNB Garhwal University (A Central University)
Srinagar (Garhwal) Uttarakhand, India
 Module 13: Author Metrics II

Credits
Course Coordinator & Presenter
Dr Ajay Semalty
Department of Pharmaceutical Sciences
HNB Garhwal University (A Central University) Srinagar (Garhwal), Uttarakhand, India

Content Writer
Dr Ajay Semalty
Department of Pharmaceutical Sciences
HNB Garhwal University (A Central University) Srinagar (Garhwal), Uttarakhand, India

Content Reviewers
Prof. (Retd.) M.S.M. Rawat
Former Vice Chancellor
HNB Garhwal University (A Central University) Srinagar (Garhwal); Advisor-HE, Govt. of
Uttarakhand, Dehradun, Uttarakhand, India

Prof. D.S. Rawat

Department of Chemistry
University of Delhi, New Delhi, India

Technical Reviewer
Dr Rajat Agrawal
Department Management Studies
Indian Institute of Technology (IIT) Roorkee, Uttarakhand, India

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MOOC: Academic Writing by Dr Ajay Semalty, HNB Garhwal University (A Central University)
Srinagar (Garhwal) Uttarakhand, India