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On the influence of uncited publications on a researcher’s h-index

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Abstract

A researcher’s output comprises cited and uncited papers. Nevertheless, the conventional h-index considers only the cited papers; and, in particular, awards a score to the so-called high-impact papers. Consequently, the h-index fails to assess the overall performance of a researcher. The purpose of this paper is to propose an author-level metric, called an apparent h-index, that augments the h-index with the number of cited/uncited papers of a researcher. The apparent h-index (hA-index) is defined as the product of the h-index and the fraction of cited papers of a researcher. Thus, the more the uncited papers of a researcher, the less the fraction of the cited papers; and, hence, the low the hA-index. In consequence, as opposed to the h-index, the hA-index can increase or decrease depending on the future performance output of a researcher. If a researcher has all his/her publications cited, the hA-index equals the h-index; and the researcher “saves” his/her h-index. However, if at least one of the publications of a researcher is uncited, the hA-index becomes lower than the h-index. This means that the hA-index takes uncited papers into consideration by way of penalization. Case studies for Physicists and Petroleum Engineers have been presented; and the results show that a researcher with a higher h-index, but with a lot of uncited papers may have a lower apparent h-index than a researcher with a lower h-index but very few uncited papers. The proposed hA-index will ensure that researchers are wary of what they “throw” in the literature.

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Article 05 February 2021

Maurice Poirrier, Sebastián Moreno & Gonzalo Huerta-Cánepa

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Acknowledgements

The University of Energy and Natural Resources, Sunyani, Ghana, provided the facility for this research. This is gratefully acknowledged.

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Authors and Affiliations

  1. Department of Energy and Petroleum Engineering, University of Energy and Natural Resources, Sunyani, Ghana

    Shaibu Mohammed, Anthony Morgan & Emmanuel Nyantakyi

Authors
  1. Shaibu Mohammed
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  2. Anthony Morgan
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  3. Emmanuel Nyantakyi
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Correspondence to Shaibu Mohammed.

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Mohammed, S., Morgan, A. & Nyantakyi, E. On the influence of uncited publications on a researcher’s h-index. Scientometrics 122, 1791–1799 (2020). https://doi.org/10.1007/s11192-020-03356-1

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  • DOI: https://doi.org/10.1007/s11192-020-03356-1

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