Author Evaluation

These metrics help quantify a researcher's impact by analyzing all the citations their publications have received throughout their publication history

There are several metrics:

Total Number of Publications

The total number of publications by the author.

Total Citations

The total number of times the author's publications have been cited by others.

h-Index

A metric for evaluating a researcher's productivity and impact. The index is calculated as follows: a researcher has an h-index of h if they have h publications, each of which has been cited at least h times. For example, a researcher with an h-index of 8 has at least 8 publications, each cited at least 8 times. 
A full explanation of the calculation method can be found in the link.

Important Points to Note:

  • The h-index will not be greater than the number of articles the author has published.
  • The index is not affected by outliers (e.g., if the top-ranked article is cited 1,000 times, the h-index does not change).
  • There are differences in index values between different research fields.
  • There are differences in index scores across different databases.
  • Tip: To increase the h-index, focus on articles with citations around the current h-index rather than the leading articles. That is, focus on medium-impact articles.

Author Field Weighted Citation Impact (FWCI)

Calculates the author's average based on their publication history, limited to 1996 onwards. The metric examines the relative impact of the author compared to other authors:

  • An FWCI value of 1 means the author has an equal impact to other authors.
  • An FWCI value of >1 means the author's publications are cited more than average. For example, an FWCI of 2.10 means it is cited 2.1 times more than average.
  • An FWCI value of <1 means the author's publications are cited less than average. For example, an FWCI of 0.85 means it is cited 15% less than average.

Note: The FWCI metric for individual articles is available through Scopus, but measuring FWCI at the author level requires a subscription to SciVal (Bar-Ilan University does not have a subscription).

 

Sources for Finding Author Evaluation Metrics:

Web of Science

Using the Web of Science database, you can get information on the total number of publications by a selected researcher and the number of citations these publications have received. These metrics are derived based on the publications indexed in Web of Science. To find the information, enter the database and select the Researchers tab. Search by the researcher's last name and first name under Researchers.

You can find the researcher using the following options:

  • Name Search: Search by the researcher's name.
  • Author Identifiers: These can be ResearcherID or ORCID ID.
  • Organization: The organization to which the researcher is affiliated.

On the researcher's page, click on View Citation Report to get detailed information, including the total number of publications, h-index, and total citations.

You can also access the researcher's page by searching for articles (Documents tab). Clicking on the author's name listed for any publication in the search results will lead to the author's profile, where you can get the desired information.

Scopus

The database allows obtaining information on the total number of publications authored by a researcher, the number of citations for each publication, and the h-index. These metrics are derived based on the publications indexed by Scopus.

To find the information, enter the Scopus database, select the Authors tab, and search for the author by:

  • Author Name: You can add the institutional affiliation (Enter affiliation name).
  • ORCID ID
  • Keyword: Related to the research field, topic, or area of interest.

Select the relevant author from the author results page and click on ‘citation overview’. A page detailing the number of publications, citations, and h-index will be displayed. A visual representation of the number of citations and publications over the author's publication years is provided. Independent citations can be excluded, and a table with the number of citations each publication received over the years can be obtained.

Google Scholar

The author's profile page on Google Scholar provides information on journal-level metrics. The page lists the author's publications indexed by Google Scholar. You can sort them by citation count and by years. Next to the list, you can see the following metrics:

  • Citations: The total number of citations the author has received based on publications indexed by Google Scholar since 2020.
  • h-Index: If the researcher does not have a profile, they will not have an h-Index.
  • i10-index: The number of articles cited at least 10 times.

The profile page also shows the researcher's co-authors and links to their profiles.

Publish or Perish

Publish or Perish is a free software for retrieving and analyzing academic citations from various information resources, some of which are university subscriptions. Pre-installation is required. Download here.

Using the software, you can search by author, publication name, keywords, and more, and get various citation metrics in the search results.

 

Advantages and Disadvantages of Using Author Evaluation Metrics:

Advantages

  • Quantitative Measure: They provide a quantitative measure to assess a researcher's cumulative contribution throughout their academic career, which can assist in decisions about promotion, tenure, and research grants.
  • Objective Comparison: They allow relatively objective comparison between researchers in a specific field, especially when using normalized metrics that account for differences between disciplines.
  • Balanced View: Metrics like the h-index consider both productivity (number of publications) and impact (number of citations), providing a more balanced view of the researcher's contribution.
  • Decision-Making Tool: They provide a helpful tool for research institutions and funding agencies in evaluating candidates and making resource allocation decisions.

Disadvantages

  • Non-Publication Contributions: They do not account for academic contributions that are not reflected in publications and citations, such as teaching, mentoring students, community service, or developing research tools.
  • Bias Towards Senior Researchers: Metrics like the h-index are biased towards senior researchers who have accumulated publications and citations over a longer period, potentially disadvantaging younger researchers or those who took career breaks.
  • Field Comparison Difficulty: There is difficulty in comparing researchers from different fields due to differences in publication and citation patterns. For example, researchers in life sciences tend to publish and accumulate citations more than those in humanities.
  • Equal Credit: The metrics do not distinguish between different types of contributions to an article (first author, last author, equal contribution) and give equal credit to all authors.

 

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