Measuring research value: H-Index
What is this measure?
The h-index (or Hirsch index) is an index that attempts to measure both the productivity and impact of the published work of a scientist or scholar. The index is based on the set of the scientist's most cited papers and the number of citations that they have received in other people's publications.
More Information
An Index to Quantift an Individual's Scientific Research Output (J. E. Hirsch)
"I propose the index h, defined as the number of papers with citation number ≥h, as a useful index to characterize the scientific output of a researcher." This is the paper that started everything.
Calculating the H-Index
To calculate an H-index manually, one only needs the total number of papers a researcher has published (Np) and the number of citations (Nc) for each paper. The H-Index is determined "by how many (h) of a researcher’s publications (Np) have at least (h) citations each".
(Image via Benchfly)
Citation Calculators
Google Scholar Citation Gadget
"Please note that this tool is as accurate/inaccurate as Google Scholar itself. Thus it is important to check and refine the data that the gadget performs calculations on by clicking on the "view publications" link."