Measuring your Scholarly Impact: Author metrics

The H-index is a measure that serves to describe a combination of an author's overall productivity and number of times cited. The H-index is named for and was developed by Jorge Hirsch, a professor at the University of California-San Diego. The H-index can be calculated for a single author, but can also be calculated for a group of authors, such as all authors at a particular university or within a department.

The H-index is defined as follows: An author's H-index is n if the author has written at least n papers that have each been cited at least n times. So if an author has authored at least 15 papers, that have been cited at least 15 times, then the author's H-index is 15.

It is important to recognize that citation patterns vary widely between academic fields, so it is improper to compare authors from different fields using the H-index.

Where can I find the H-index?

You can find the H-index in any major citation index such as Web of Science, Google Scholar, or Scopus. The H-index will vary depending on which papers are included in that citation index.

• In Google Scholar, if you are signed in, you should see a link to create your profile. After you have created your profile, your H-index will appear on the right-hand side of your profile page. An accurate H-index depends on you choosing keeping your Google profile accurate with the right papers.
• In Web of Science, perform an "Author Search." Enter your name and perform the search. It may ask you to narrow the results by which institutions you are a part of.  It will then show you your profile and will show an H-index.
• In Scopus, perform a search by author, entering in all the requested information. You will see an H-index on the results page.
• You can also use the software Anne-Wil Harzing's Publish or Perish to assist you in determining your H-index and other metrics. Harzing's information is based off of Google Scholar.

While the H-index is very popular, there are other author metrics, such as the g-index and i10-index.

• i10-index is the number of papers you have written that have at least 10 citations.
• g-index is a variant of the h-index. The g-index is defined by scholar Leo Egghe as: "[Given a set of articles] ranked in decreasing order of the number of citations that they received, the g-index is the (unique) largest number such that the top g articles received (together) at least g² citations." (Egghe, 2006)