Research Impact

H-Index

Proposed by J.E. Hirsch in 2005, this metric has become one of the most used metrics for measuring a researcher's impact.  However, it is much criticized, and often controversial.  The h-index is a measure of a researcher's impact that is defined as:

• A scientist with an index of h has published h papers each of which has been cited in other papers at least h times.

M-Index

In response to the need to facilitate comparisons between researchers with different lengths of careers, the m-index or m-quotient, tries to account for the fact that junior researchers have not had time to accumulate citations on their papers. The m-index is:

• the h-index divided by the number of years a researcher has been active (measured as the number of years since the first published paper).

G-Index

In response to criticism that the h-index ignores the number of citations to each article beyond what is needed to achieve a certain h-index, the g-index was proposed by Leo Egghe in 2006 to give more weight to highly-cited articles. The g-index is defined as:

• Given a set of articles ranked in decreasing order of the number of citations that they received, the g-index is the (unique) largest number such that the top g articles received (together) at least g² citations.

i10-Index

Developed by Google Scholar, it shows the number of publications with at least 10 citations.

Author records are automatically generated when you perform an Author Search in Web of Science. These author records are groups of papers that our algorithm determines are likely to be by a single author. You can identify, curate and claim your author records by creating a profile. Learn more.

Steps:

1. Go to Web of Science and select the "Researchers" tab. 
2. Search by your name, and find your author record.

Tips: 

If your name is unique and there are many author records, use the filter on the left side of the page to limit to your instution or subject category.

Learn more about Web of Science's ResearchID, including how to claim your record. If you claim your record, you can correct the publications that appear under your author profile, and you can also view a metrics dashboard that contains additional information. 

Scopus automatically creates an author profile when two or more articles can be linked to one profile. Scopus uses algorithmic data processing to match articles to author based on name, email, affiliation, subject area, citations and co-authors. Learn more about Scopus AuthorID, including how to claim and correct an author profile.

Steps:

1. Go to Scopus and select the "Author" tab above the search box.
2. Search for your name and find your author record. If you have a common name, add your affiliation to the search. 

Tips: 

Author metrics, such as h-index will display in the results list, but click on the author's name to view additional information.

Author profiles only appear for those who have authored 2 or more publications that are indexed in Scopus.

By creating a Google Scholar Profile, you can showcase their academic publications; check who is citing your articles, graph citations over time; and compute several citation metrics - including H-Index and i10-Index. You can also make your profile public, so that it may appear in Google Scholar results when people search for your name, e.g., Elizabeth Suelzer.

Learn how to setup your Google Scholar Profile.