Restricting the h-index to a citation time window: A case study of a timed Hirsch index

TL;DR

This paper investigates how limiting the citation window affects the evolution of the h-index, aiming to address the issue of citation inertia from older publications.

Contribution

It provides an empirical analysis of the timed h-index's behavior based on different citation time windows, offering insights into its dynamics.

Findings

Timed h-index varies with the length of the citation window

Shorter windows reduce the influence of old citations

Longer windows tend to increase the h-index over time

Abstract

The h-index has been shown to increase in many cases mostly because of citations to rather old publications. This inertia can be circumvented by restricting the evaluation to a citation time window. Here I report results of an empirical study analyzing the evolution of the thus defined timed h-index in dependence on the length of the citation time window.