TL;DR
This paper analyzes the limitations of citation-counting indices like the h-index in measuring scientific influence, highlighting their inability to compare across fields or capture indirect influence, and suggests richer data can improve these measures.
Contribution
It provides an axiomatic characterization of citation-counting indices and identifies their key limitations, proposing ways to overcome them with richer bibliographic information.
Findings
Citation indices are field-dependent
They cannot measure indirect influence
Richer data can improve influence measurement
Abstract
I study the measurement of scientists' influence using bibliographic data. The main result is an axiomatic characterization of the family of citation-counting indices, a broad class of influence measures which includes the renowned h-index. The result highlights several limitations of these indices: they are not suitable to compare scientists across different fields, and they cannot account for indirect influence. I explore how these limitations can be overcome by using richer bibliographic information.
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Taxonomy
Topicsscientometrics and bibliometrics research · Philosophy and History of Science