Model-based evaluation of scientific impact indicators

TL;DR

This study uses a model of citation dynamics to evaluate various scientific impact indicators, revealing strengths and limitations of common metrics like citation averages and h/g indices in assessing researcher impact.

Contribution

It introduces a simulation-based framework to objectively compare impact indicators, highlighting the effectiveness of citation averages and the potential of logarithmic citation measures.

Findings

Citation average effectively captures scientific ability.

h and g indices are useful when productivity is considered.

Logarithmic citation units can match h and g performance.

Abstract

Using bibliometric data artificially generated through a model of citation dynamics calibrated on empirical data, we compare several indicators for the scientific impact of individual researchers. The use of such a controlled setup has the advantage of avoiding the biases present in real databases, and allows us to assess which aspects of the model dynamics and which traits of individual researchers a particular indicator actually reflects. We find that the simple citation average performs well in capturing the intrinsic scientific ability of researchers, whatever the length of their career. On the other hand, when productivity complements ability in the evaluation process, the notorious $h$ and $g$ indices reveal their potential, yet their normalized variants do not always yield a fair comparison between researchers at different career stages. Notably, the use of logarithmic units for citation counts allows us to build simple indicators with performance equal to that of $h$ and $g$. Our analysis may provide useful hints for a proper use of bibliometric indicators. Additionally, our framework can be extended by including other aspects of the scientific production process and citation dynamics, with the potential to become a standard tool for the assessment of impact metrics.