The w-index: A measure to assess scientific impact by focusing on widely cited papers

  • Authors:
  • Qiang Wu

  • Affiliations:
  • School of Management, University of Science and Technology of China, 96 Jinzhai Road, Hefei 230026, China

  • Venue:
  • Journal of the American Society for Information Science and Technology
  • Year:
  • 2010

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Abstract

Based on the principles of the h-index, I propose a new measure, the w-index, as a particularly simple and more useful way to assess the substantial impact of a researcher's work, especially regarding excellent papers. The w-index can be defined as follows: If w of a researcher's papers have at least 10w citations each and the other papers have fewer than 10(w+1) citations, that researcher's w-index is w. The results demonstrate that there are noticeable differences between the w-index and the h-index, because the w-index plays close attention to the more widely cited papers. These discrepancies can be measured by comparing the ranks of 20 astrophysicists, a few famous physical scientists, and 16 Price medalists. Furthermore, I put forward the w(q)-index to improve the discriminatory power of the w-index and to rank scientists with the same w. The factor q is the least number of citations a researcher with w needed to reach w+1. In terms of both simplicity and accuracy, the w-index or w(q)-index can be widely used for evaluation of scientists, journals, conferences, scientific topics, research institutions, and so on. © 2010 Wiley Periodicals, Inc.