A new Hirsch - type index saves time and works equally well as the original h - index Marek Kosmulski

© 2005, International Society for Scientometrics and Informetrics (ISSI) © 2005-2006, International Society for Scientometrics and Informetrics (ISSI) 4 (HIRSCH, 2005) introduced an index h defined as the number of papers of certain author with citation number of at least h, and calculated the values of the h-index of Nobel-winners and of other top physicists and biologists. Typical h-values in this group were about 50, and the highest h of an individual was 191. The h-index gained popularity after a publication in Nature (BALL, 2005). BORNMANN & DANIEL (2005) discussed the usefulness of the h-index in assessment of relatively young scientists (h-index of about 3), but in the opinion of the present author the h-index is more suitable for assessment of mature scientists who have published at least 50 papers and have h-indexes of at least 10. The h-indexes of all full professors affiliated at a department of chemistry of one university in Poland have been calculated and analyzed in detail. Sufficient information was available to assess if the papers found in the database (Thomson Scientific) were authored by the individual of interest of by someone else who happens to have the same family name and first name initial(s). Even the maiden names of the professors who took their husbands’ names after marriage were know, but (in this particular Abstract A scientist’s h(2) index is defined as the highest natural number such that his h(2) most-cited papers received each at least [h(2)] citations. The advantage of h(2) as the index to characterize the scientific output of an individual over the original h index (HIRSCH, 2005) is that less work is required to verify the authorship of the relevant papers. A new Hirsch-type index saves time and works equally well as the original h-index