An empirical and theoretical critique of the Euclidean index

TL;DR

This paper critically evaluates the Euclidean index, a new citation impact measure, and finds it offers no significant advantages over existing bibliometric indicators, especially for ranking purposes.

Contribution

It provides an empirical and theoretical critique of the Euclidean index, highlighting its limitations and lack of added value compared to established metrics.

Findings

Euclidean index does not outperform existing indicators

The index offers limited new information beyond current metrics

Main use would be for ranking, which is not recommended

Abstract

The recently proposed Euclidean index offers a novel approach to measure the citation impact of academic authors, in particular as an alternative to the h-index. We test if the index provides new, robust information, not covered by existing bibliometric indicators, discuss the measurement scale and the degree of distinction between analytical units the index offers. We find that the Euclidean index does not outperform existing indicators on these topics and that the main application of the index would be solely for ranking, which is not seen as a recommended practice.