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The influence of missing publications on the Hirsch index

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  • Rousseau, Ronald

Abstract

We show that usually the influence on the Hirsch index of missing highly cited articles is much smaller than the number of missing articles. This statement is shown by a combinatorial argument. We further show, by using a continuous power law model, that the influence of missing articles is largest when the total number of publications is small, and non-existing when the number of publications is very large. The same conclusion can be drawn for missing citations. Hence, the h-index is resilient to missing articles and to missing citations.

Suggested Citation

  • Rousseau, Ronald, 2007. "The influence of missing publications on the Hirsch index," Journal of Informetrics, Elsevier, vol. 1(1), pages 2-7.
    • Handle: RePEc:eee:infome:v:1:y:2007:i:1:p:2-7
    DOI: 10.1016/j.joi.2006.05.001
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    References listed on IDEAS

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    1. Leo Egghe & Ronald Rousseau, 2006. "An informetric model for the Hirsch-index," Scientometrics, Springer;Akadémiai Kiadó, vol. 69(1), pages 121-129, October.
    2. Liming Liang, 2006. "h-index sequence and h-index matrix: Constructions and applications," Scientometrics, Springer;Akadémiai Kiadó, vol. 69(1), pages 153-159, October.
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    Citations

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    Cited by:

    1. John Panaretos & Chrisovaladis Malesios, 2009. "Assessing scientific research performance and impact with single indices," Scientometrics, Springer;Akadémiai Kiadó, vol. 81(3), pages 635-670, December.
    2. Moussa, Salim & Touzani, Mourad, 2010. "Ranking marketing journals using the Google Scholar-based hg-index," Journal of Informetrics, Elsevier, vol. 4(1), pages 107-117.
    3. Kwame Boamah‐Addo & Tomasz J. Kozubowski & Anna K. Panorska, 2023. "A discrete truncated Zipf distribution," Statistica Neerlandica, Netherlands Society for Statistics and Operations Research, vol. 77(2), pages 156-187, May.
    4. Christopher McCarty & James W. Jawitz & Allison Hopkins & Alex Goldman, 2013. "Predicting author h-index using characteristics of the co-author network," Scientometrics, Springer;Akadémiai Kiadó, vol. 96(2), pages 467-483, August.
    5. Woeginger, Gerhard J., 2008. "A symmetry axiom for scientific impact indices," Journal of Informetrics, Elsevier, vol. 2(4), pages 298-303.
    6. Yuxian Liu & Ronald Rousseau, 2009. "Properties of Hirsch-type indices: the case of library classification categories," Scientometrics, Springer;Akadémiai Kiadó, vol. 79(2), pages 235-248, May.
    7. Rodriguez, Victor & Janssens, Frizo & Debackere, Koenraad & De Moor, Bart, 2008. "On material transfer agreements and visibility of researchers in biotechnology," Journal of Informetrics, Elsevier, vol. 2(1), pages 89-100.
    8. Vladimir G. Deineko & Gerhard J. Woeginger, 2009. "A new family of scientific impact measures: The generalized Kosmulski-indices," Scientometrics, Springer;Akadémiai Kiadó, vol. 80(3), pages 819-826, September.
    9. Gerson Pech & Catarina Delgado, 2020. "Percentile and stochastic-based approach to the comparison of the number of citations of articles indexed in different bibliographic databases," Scientometrics, Springer;Akadémiai Kiadó, vol. 123(1), pages 223-252, April.
    10. Dašić Predrag, 2015. "State and Analysis of Scientific Journals in the Field of “Economic Sciences” for the Period 1995-2014," Economic Themes, Sciendo, vol. 53(4), pages 547-581, December.
    11. Marek Gągolewski & Przemysław Grzegorzewski, 2009. "A geometric approach to the construction of scientific impact indices," Scientometrics, Springer;Akadémiai Kiadó, vol. 81(3), pages 617-634, December.
    12. García-Pérez, Miguel A., 2011. "Strange attractors in the Web of Science database," Journal of Informetrics, Elsevier, vol. 5(1), pages 214-218.
    13. Malesios, C., 2016. "Measuring the robustness of the journal h-index with respect to publication and citation values: A Bayesian sensitivity analysis," Journal of Informetrics, Elsevier, vol. 10(3), pages 719-731.
    14. Vanclay, Jerome K., 2008. "Ranking forestry journals using the h-index," Journal of Informetrics, Elsevier, vol. 2(4), pages 326-334.
    15. Alonso, S. & Cabrerizo, F.J. & Herrera-Viedma, E. & Herrera, F., 2009. "h-Index: A review focused in its variants, computation and standardization for different scientific fields," Journal of Informetrics, Elsevier, vol. 3(4), pages 273-289.

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