P-INDEX - a fair alternative to H-INDEX

The popular Hirsch index is used as a criterion for evaluating the achievements of scientists, departments, universities, and countries. Unfortunately, this index is often unfair in view of various scientific disciplines, can easily be manipulated, so its usefulness is undermined by unfair competition. To address these problems, this paper introduces a set of new popularity indices which evaluate the realistic popularity of a publication or a scientist better than the Hirsch index, by incorporating the number of different and non-repeating citing authors. These indices can rise only when citations from new authors appear. The popularity index is based on the scientist’s most cited papers represented by the biggest number of non-repeating citing authors. Selfand duplicated citations of the same publication by the same authors are not taken into account. The p-index can also be applied to measure the productivity, popularity, and impact of a group of scientists as well as a scholarly journal. They can be treated as post-reviews of publications, because the cited papers or books would need to be positively reviewed by the citing authors in order to influence the popularity indices. Popularity indices are hard to manipulate or artificially increase, because the citing authors are considered only once. Thus, the p-index can be used as a fair alternative to the hindex.