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Single parameter indices and bibliometric outliers

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  • Gangan Prathap

    (CSIR National Institute for Interdisciplinary Science and Technology)

Abstract

In this paper, we look at the issue of the high-end of research performance which is captured in the tail of a citation distribution. As the mean is insufficient to capture the skewness of such distributions, a consistency or concentration measure is the additional parameter needed. We show that the h-index is only approximately a heuristic mock of a composite indicator built from three primary indicators which are the number, mean and consistency term. The z-index is able to sense the change in consistency in the distribution due to the outliers in the tail of the distribution.

Suggested Citation

  • Gangan Prathap, 2014. "Single parameter indices and bibliometric outliers," Scientometrics, Springer;Akadémiai Kiadó, vol. 101(3), pages 1781-1787, December.
  • Handle: RePEc:spr:scient:v:101:y:2014:i:3:d:10.1007_s11192-013-1225-z
    DOI: 10.1007/s11192-013-1225-z
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    References listed on IDEAS

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    1. Wolfgang Glänzel & Henk F. Moed, 2013. "Opinion paper: thoughts and facts on bibliometric indicators," Scientometrics, Springer;Akadémiai Kiadó, vol. 96(1), pages 381-394, July.
    2. Gangan Prathap, 2011. "The Energy–Exergy–Entropy (or EEE) sequences in bibliometric assessment," Scientometrics, Springer;Akadémiai Kiadó, vol. 87(3), pages 515-524, June.
    3. Gangan Prathap, 2011. "Quasity, when quantity has a quality all of its own—toward a theory of performance," Scientometrics, Springer;Akadémiai Kiadó, vol. 88(2), pages 555-562, August.
    4. Gangan Prathap, 2010. "The 100 most prolific economists using the p-index," Scientometrics, Springer;Akadémiai Kiadó, vol. 84(1), pages 167-172, July.
    5. Gangan Prathap, 2010. "Is there a place for a mock h-index?," Scientometrics, Springer;Akadémiai Kiadó, vol. 84(1), pages 153-165, July.
    6. David A. Pendlebury & Jonathan Adams, 2012. "Comments on a critique of the Thomson Reuters journal impact factor," Scientometrics, Springer;Akadémiai Kiadó, vol. 92(2), pages 395-401, August.
    7. Alex De Visscher, 2011. "What does the g-index really measure?," Journal of the Association for Information Science & Technology, Association for Information Science & Technology, vol. 62(11), pages 2290-2293, November.
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    Citations

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    Cited by:

    1. Gangan Prathap, 2019. "Letter to the editor: Revisiting the h-index and the p-index," Scientometrics, Springer;Akadémiai Kiadó, vol. 121(3), pages 1829-1833, December.
    2. Lutz Bornmann & Julian N. Marewski, 2019. "Heuristics as conceptual lens for understanding and studying the usage of bibliometrics in research evaluation," Scientometrics, Springer;Akadémiai Kiadó, vol. 120(2), pages 419-459, August.
    3. Qing Cheng & Xin Lu & Zhong Liu & Jincai Huang, 2015. "Mining research trends with anomaly detection models: the case of social computing research," Scientometrics, Springer;Akadémiai Kiadó, vol. 103(2), pages 453-469, May.

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