Central indexes to the citation distribution: a complement to the h-index

Authors:
Pablo Dorta-González;María-Isabel Dorta-González
Affiliations:
Departamento de Métodos Cuantitativos en Economía y Gestión, Universidad de Las Palmas de Gran Canaria, Gran Canaria, Spain;Departamento de Estadística, Investigación Operativa y Computación, Universidad de La Laguna, Tenerife, Spain
Venue:
Scientometrics
Year:
2011

Citing 3
Cited 2

Using the h-index to rank influential information scientistss: Brief Communication

Journal of the American Society for Information Science and Technology
What do we know about the h index?

Journal of the American Society for Information Science and Technology
A proposal for a dynamic h-type index

Journal of the American Society for Information Science and Technology

Quantified Score

Hi-index	0.00

Visualization

Abstract

The citation distribution of a researcher shows the impact of their production and determines the success of their scientific career. However, its application in scientific evaluation is difficult due to the bi-dimensional character of the distribution. Some bibliometric indexes that try to synthesize in a numerical value the principal characteristics of this distribution have been proposed recently. In contrast with other bibliometric measures, the biases that the distribution tails provoke, are reduced by the h-index. However, some limitations in the discrimination among researchers with different publication habits are presented in this index. This index penalizes selective researchers, distinguished by the large number of citations received, as compared to large producers. In this work, two original sets of indexes, the central area indexes and the central interval indexes, that complement the h-index to include the central shape of the citation distribution, are proposed and compared.