Measuring academic performance for healthcare researchers with the H index: which search tool should be used?
Author(s)
Type
Journal Article
Abstract
Objectives: To compare H index scores for healthcare researchers returned by Google Scholar, Web of Science and Scopus databases, and to assess whether a researcher’s age, country of institutional affiliation and physician status influences calculations. Subjects and Methods: One hundred and ninety-five Nobel laureates in Physiology and Medicine from 1901 to 2009 were considered. Year of first and last publications, total publications and citation counts, and the H index for each laureate were calculated from each database. Cronbach’s alpha statistics was used to measure the reliability of H index scores between the databases. Laureate characteristic influence on the H index was analysed using linear regression. Results: There was no concordance between the databases when considering the number of publications and citations count per laureate. The H index was the most reliably calculated bibliometric across the three databases (Cronbach’s alpha = 0.900). All databases returned significantly higher H index scores for younger laureates (p < 0.0001). Google Scholar and Web of Science returned significantly higher H index for physician laureates (p = 0.025 and p = 0.029, respectively). Country of institutional affiliation did not influence the H index in any database. Conclusion: The H index appeared to be the most consistently calculated bibliometric between the databases for Nobel laureates in Physiology and Medicine. Researcher-specific characteristics constituted an important component of objective research assessment. The findings of this study call to question the choice of current and future academic performance databases.
Date Issued
2013-01-01
Date Acceptance
2012-07-05
Citation
Medical Principles and Practice, 2013, 22 (2), pp.178-183
ISSN
1011-7571
Publisher
Karger
Start Page
178
End Page
183
Journal / Book Title
Medical Principles and Practice
Volume
22
Issue
2
Copyright Statement
© 2012 S. Karger AG, Basel. Th is is an Open Access article licensed under the terms of
the Creative Commons Attribution- NonCommercial-NoDerivs 3.0 License (www.karger.com/OA-license), applicable to the online version of the article only. Distribution for
non-commercial purposes only.
the Creative Commons Attribution- NonCommercial-NoDerivs 3.0 License (www.karger.com/OA-license), applicable to the online version of the article only. Distribution for
non-commercial purposes only.
Sponsor
National Institute for Health Research
Identifier
http://gateway.webofknowledge.com/gateway/Gateway.cgi?GWVersion=2&SrcApp=PARTNER_APP&SrcAuth=LinksAMR&KeyUT=WOS:000314751000011&DestLinkType=FullRecord&DestApp=ALL_WOS&UsrCustomerID=1ba7043ffcc86c417c072aa74d649202
Grant Number
NF-SI-0510-10186
Subjects
Science & Technology
Life Sciences & Biomedicine
Medicine, General & Internal
General & Internal Medicine
H index
Benchmarking
Health services research
Bibliographic databases
GOOGLE-SCHOLAR
SCOPUS
WEB
SCIENCE
Publication Status
Published
Date Publish Online
2012-09-06