Understanding the h-index (Hirsch Index) and its Correlation with the Number of Citations and Number of Documents

Abstract

The impact of the work of any researcher is vital for a variety of reasons. While it helps the universities to decide the appointment of researchers in the position of faculty, it also helps the funding organizations to decide on the funding of their research works. Further, the impact helps the award-giving institutions, like the Nobel Committee to decide whether or not to confer awards to the researchers. Though a variety of indexes help the organizations and students of scientometry to gauge the impact of any researcher, the Hirsch index (h-index) is the most popular of the various metrics. The h-index is calculated based on the number of citations the scientific productions of the researchers have received from other future researchers as also the number of scientific documents produced by them. With the dataset comprising of Nobel Laureates in Chemistry from 2014 till 2019, this study attempts to correlate the number of citations and the number of documents with the h-index. The level of correlation of the independent variables with the h-index has also been assessed as a part of this study. This study has observed that both the number of citations and the number of scientific productivity have a direct correlation with the h-index though the number of citations is a better fit. This study has also observed the validity of Yong’s formula.