The inconsistency of the h-index

  • Authors:

  • Ludo Waltman;Nees Jan van Eck

  • Affiliations:

  • Centre for Science and Technology Studies, Leiden University, P.O. Box 905, 2300 AX Leiden, The Netherlands;Centre for Science and Technology Studies, Leiden University

  • Venue:
  • Journal of the American Society for Information Science and Technology
  • Year:
  • 2012

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Abstract

The h-index is a popular bibliometric indicator for assessing individual scientists. We criticize the h-index from a theoretical point of view. We argue that for the purpose of measuring the overall scientific impact of a scientist (or some other unit of analysis), the h-index behaves in a counterintuitive way. In certain cases, the mechanism used by the h-index to aggregate publication and citation statistics into a single number leads to inconsistencies in the way in which scientists are ranked. Our conclusion is that the h-index cannot be considered an appropriate indicator of a scientist's overall scientific impact. Based on recent theoretical insights, we discuss what kind of indicators can be used as an alternative to the h-index. We pay special attention to the highly cited publications indicator. This indicator has a lot in common with the h-index, but unlike the h-index it does not produce inconsistent rankings. © 2012 Wiley Periodicals, Inc.