Portal de Periódicos da CAPES

What do we know about the h index?

2007; Wiley; Volume: 58; Issue: 9 Linguagem: Inglês

10.1002/asi.20609

1532-2890

Lutz Bornmann, Hans‐Dieter Daniel,

Web visibility and informetrics

Abstract Jorge Hirsch (2005a, 2005b) recently proposed the h index to quantify the research output of individual scientists. The new index has attracted a lot of attention in the scientific community. The claim that the h index in a single number provides a good representation of the scientific lifetime achievement of a scientist as well as the (supposed) simple calculation of the h index using common literature databases lead to the danger of improper use of the index. We describe the advantages and disadvantages of the h index and summarize the studies on the convergent validity of this index. We also introduce corrections and complements as well as single‐number alternatives to the h index.