Does the h index have predictive power?

2007/08/31 by J. E. Hirsch · 2 citations
Decision Sciences · Physics and Astronomy · #Academic Publishing and Open Access #cond-mat.stat-mech #hep-th #physics.soc-ph #scientometrics and bibliometrics research

paper · pdf · doi:10.1073/pnas.0707962104

published as Proc.Nat.Acad.Sci. vol. 104, 19193 (2007) · Sect. V added on combining h and N_c, with new Fig. 11. Other minor changes. To be published in PNAS

arxiv created 2007/10/14 · openalex publication_date 2007/11/27 · arxiv updated 2009/12/01 · openalex created_date 2016/06/24 · openalex updated_date 2026/07/29

Abstract

Bibliometric measures of individual scientific achievement are of particular interest if they can be used to predict future achievement. Here we report results of an empirical study of the predictive power of the h index compared with other indicators. Our findings indicate that the h index is better than other indicators considered (total citation count, citations per paper, and total paper count) in predicting future scientific achievement. We discuss reasons for the superiority of the h index.

Citations

• The R- and AR-indices: Complementing the h-index
• Measures for measures

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