English

Self-citation corrections for the Hirsch index

Physics and Society 2007-05-23 v2

Abstract

I propose to sharpen the index h, proposed by Hirsch as a useful index to characterize the scientific output of a researcher, by excluding the self-citations. Performing a self-experiment and also analyzing two anonymous data sets, it is shown that self-citations can significantly reduce the hh index in contrast to Hirsch's expectations. This result is confirmed by an analysis of 13 further data sets.

Keywords

Cite

@article{arxiv.physics/0701231,
  title  = {Self-citation corrections for the Hirsch index},
  author = {Michael Schreiber},
  journal= {arXiv preprint arXiv:physics/0701231},
  year   = {2007}
}

Comments

6 pages, 6 figures, accepted for publication in EPL, more data sets investigated and more references added in comparison with previous version