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Back to all metricsh-indices in SciVal indicate a balance between the productivity (Scholarly Output) and citation impact (Citation Count) of an entity’s publications.
h5-index uses a 5 year publication and citation window on the standard h-index calculation and as such can be used to fairly track the metric over time in the Benchmarking module. The h5-index for an entity in 2016 takes the publications published by that entity from 2012–2016 and the citations received by those publications in the same time window to form a data set. It then uses the h-index calculation on the data set to compute the h5-index.
h-indices are available in SciVal for all Researcher-based entities, and for Research Areas.
h-indices are:
- Productivity metrics
- Citation Impact metrics
- Snowball Metrics (h-index only)
- “Power Metrics”
For the h5-index, a single value is available for researcher-based entities and institutions. This is represented in the Benchmarking module as a trend line from 2000 until the last full year in SciVal. The publication year represents the final year of the 5 year h5-index, i.e. 2016 represents the year range 2012–2016 and 2015 represents the year range 2011–2015.
- Benchmark activity in a way that relies on the balance between two fundamental aspects of performance, namely productivity and citation impact:
- The total number of publications, or Scholarly Output, of an entity sets a limit for the value of the h-index. If a researcher has 1 publication that has been cited 100 times, their h-index cannot exceed 1.
- The total number of citations received, or Citation Count, sets the other limit for the value of the h-index. If a researcher has 100 publications which have each received 0 or 1 citations, their h-index also cannot exceed 1.
- Be used for a related group of metrics, each with their own strengths
- Comparing entities of significantly different sizes:
- The values of these metrics are limited by the Scholarly Output of an entity, and tend to increase with the size of the data set.
- This can be accounted for within a discipline, when the difference in size is due to different career lengths, by using the m-index; in this situation, variations revealed by the m-index are due to differences in annual productivity and citations received, which are likely the performance aspects of interest.
- Benchmarking entities within different disciplines, even if these entities have similar sizes:
- The values of h-indices are limited by the Citation Count of an entity, and tend to be highest in subject fields such as biochemistry, genetics and molecular biology; this reflects distinct publication and citation behavior between subject fields and does not necessarily indicate a difference in performance.
- It is not advisable to compare the h-indices of entities that fall entirely into distinct disciplines, such as a Researcher in genetics with a Researcher in human-computer interaction.
- When comparing entities made up of a mixture of disciplines, such as cross-disciplinary research teams, it is advised to apply the Research Area filter to focus on one field that is common between all the entities.
- An indication of the magnitude of the productivity and citation impact of an entity is important.
- It is advised to use Scholarly Output and Citation Count when it is important to communicate scale.
- Entities are small and there may be gaps in their output within the Scopus coverage:
- A single missing publication from a total or 3 or 4 will have a significant negative impact on apparent performance, whereas the effect of 1 missing publication from a total of 100 may be acceptable.
- The only way to account for this is to be vigilant, particularly when looking at small data sets such as an early-career researcher, or to limit the use of these metrics to comparing larger data sets in which potential gaps in the database coverage likely have a similar effect on all entities being viewed and do not invalidate the comparison.
- Scholarly Output opens in new tab/windowand Citation Count opens in new tab/windowwhich provide information about the magnitude of productivity and citation impact
- The set of all other “Power Metrics” whose value tends to increase as the entity becomes bigger: Scholarly Output, Subject Area Count, Scopus Source Title Count, Citation Count, Cited Publications (“Total value”), Number of Citing Countries, Collaboration (“Total value”), Academic-Corporate Collaboration (“Total value”), Outputs in Top Citation Percentiles (“Total value”), and Publications in Top Journal Percentiles (“Total value”)
- The set of “time-independent metrics”, which provide useful, reliable information immediately upon publication and do not rely on the passing of time for useful data to accumulate: Scholarly Output, Subject Area Count, Scopus Source Title Count, Collaboration, Academic-Corporate Collaboration, and Publications in Top Journal Percentiles
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