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Using h-cores to study the most-cited articles of the twenty-first century

Author

Listed:
  • Elias Sanz-Casado

    (Carlos III University of Madrid
    Carlos III University of Madrid-Autonomous University of Madrid)

  • Carlos García-Zorita

    (Carlos III University of Madrid
    Carlos III University of Madrid-Autonomous University of Madrid)

  • Ronald Rousseau

    (KU Leuven
    Universiteit Antwerpen)

Abstract

The aim of this paper is to collect the most-cited articles of the twenty-first century and to study how this group changed over time. Here the term “most-cited” is operationalized by considering yearly h-cores in the Web of Science. These h-cores are analysed in terms of authors, research areas, countries, institutions, journals and average number of authors per paper. We only consider publications of article or proceedings type. The research of some of the more prolific authors is on genetics and genomes publishing in multidisciplinary journals, such as Nature and Science, while the results show that writing a software tool for crystallography or molecular biology may help collecting large numbers of citations. English is the language of all articles in any h-core. The core institutions are largely those best placed in most rankings of world universities. Some attention is given on the relation between h-core articles and the information sciences. We further introduce the notions of h-core scores and h-core score per publication, leading to new rankings of countries. We conclude by stating that the notions of h-cores and h-core scores provide a new perspective on leading countries, articles and scientists.

Suggested Citation

  • Elias Sanz-Casado & Carlos García-Zorita & Ronald Rousseau, 2016. "Using h-cores to study the most-cited articles of the twenty-first century," Scientometrics, Springer;Akadémiai Kiadó, vol. 108(1), pages 243-261, July.
    • Handle: RePEc:spr:scient:v:108:y:2016:i:1:d:10.1007_s11192-016-1956-8
    DOI: 10.1007/s11192-016-1956-8
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    References listed on IDEAS

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    Cited by:

    1. Xiaojun Hu & Ronald Rousseau, 2017. "Nobel Prize winners 2016: Igniting or sparking foundational publications?," Scientometrics, Springer;Akadémiai Kiadó, vol. 110(2), pages 1053-1063, February.
    2. Hu, Xiaojun & Rousseau, Ronald, 2016. "Scientific influence is not always visible: The phenomenon of under-cited influential publications," Journal of Informetrics, Elsevier, vol. 10(4), pages 1079-1091.
    3. Gauffriau, Marianne, 2017. "A categorization of arguments for counting methods for publication and citation indicators," Journal of Informetrics, Elsevier, vol. 11(3), pages 672-684.
    4. Wei, Shelia X. & Tong, Tong & Rousseau, Ronald & Wang, Wanru & Ye, Fred Y., 2022. "Relations among the h-, g-, ψ-, and p-index and offset-ability," Journal of Informetrics, Elsevier, vol. 16(4).
    5. Fassin, Yves, 2024. "The internal dynamics of journals’ h-cores over time," Journal of Informetrics, Elsevier, vol. 18(2).

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