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Coping with the Inequity and Inefficiency of the H-Index: A Cross-Disciplinary Analytical Model

  • Fabio ZagonariEmail author
Article

Abstract

This paper develops an empirically validated theoretical model of a researcher’s publication goal to assess which standardisations and policies are more likely to achieve equity and efficiency in different disciplines. The main theoretical insight is that there is a trade-off between equity and efficiency, as well as between networking activity and knowledge-diffusion activity. The main empirical insight is that, in order to achieve equity and efficiency, the original version of the H index should be replaced by a version that is standardised per author and per year and calculated by excluding reciprocal citations and publications other than peer-reviewed articles.

Keywords

H index Equity Efficiency Cross-disciplinary Analytical model 

Notes

Acknowledgements

I thank Alberto Zigoni and Jeroen Baas, Elsevier, for providing summary statistics for the Scopus dataset.

References

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Copyright information

© Springer Science+Business Media, LLC, part of Springer Nature 2018

Authors and Affiliations

  1. 1.Dipartimento di Scienze EconomicheUniversità di BolognaRiminiItaly

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