What does the g‐index really measure?

Alex De Visscher

Journal of the American Society for Information Science and Technology, 2011, vol. 62, issue 11, 2290-2293

Abstract: It was argued recently that the g‐index is a measure of a researcher's specific impact (i.e., impact per paper) as much as it is a measure of overall impact. While this is true for the productive “core” of publications, it can be argued that the g‐index does not differ from the square root of the total number of citations in a bibliometrically meaningful way when the entire publication list is considered. The R‐index also has a tendency to follow total impact, leaving only the A‐index as a true measure of specific impact. The main difference between the g‐index and the h‐index is that the former penalizes consistency of impact whereas the latter rewards such consistency. It is concluded that the h‐index is a better bibliometric tool than is the g‐index, and that the square root of the total number of citations is a convenient measure of a researcher's overall impact.

Date: 2011
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