Author impact metrics purport to measure an author's impact relative to other authors working in similar fields.
Common metrics
Several metrics are available for measuring author impact including:
- h-index: the most commonly used index to demonstrate author impact, it is derived from calculating the number of articles published (h) that have been cited at least h times. So an author h-index of 10 means that the author has published 10 articles that have been cited at least 10 times.
- g-index: a modification of the h-index that gives more weight to highly-cited articles.
- i10-index: developed by Google Scholar, the author i10-index is the number of articles published by an author that have received at least 10 citations.
While potentially useful, these metrics are controversial. See limitations of bibliometrics for more information.
Common tools
Each tool measures author impact based upon the publications it indexes. As a result, different tools will provide different results and it is advisable that you check more than one. Common tools that provide author impact metrics include:
- Harzing's Publish or Perish (free download/installation)
- Provides a myriad of metrics, including h-index, g-index, total citation, number of citation per author
- Data is pulled from Google Scholar, Scopus, Semantic Scholar and more.
- More information about Publish or Perish.
- Google Scholar
- Provides h-index and i10-index. Requires author to set up a Google Scholar profile.
- More information about Google Scholar.
- Scopus
- Provides h-index, sum of times cited, and citations per year. Can include/exclude self-citations.
- See information about content included.
- Also useful is SciVal, which is built on Scopus data and offers more. See more information about SciVal.
- Web of Science
- Provides h-index, sum of times cited, citing articles, and average citations per item. Can include/exclude self-citations.
- See information about content included.
- See Web of Science: Citation Report (video).
- More information on Web of Science.