Abstract Given the growing use of impact metrics in the evaluation of scholars, journals, academic institutions, and even countries, there is a critical need for means to compare scientific impact across disciplinary boundaries. Unfortunately, citation-based metrics are strongly biased by diverse field sizes and publication and citation practices. As a result, we have witnessed an explosion in the number of newly proposed metrics that claim to be “universal.” However, there is currently no way to objectively assess whether a normalized metric can actually compensate for disciplinary bias. We introduce a new method to assess the universality of any scholarly impact metric, and apply it to evaluate a number of established metrics. We also define a very simple new metric hs, which proves to be universal, thus allowing to compare the impact of scholars across scientific disciplines. These results move us closer to a formal methodology in the measure of scholarly impact.
%0 Journal Article
%1 kaur2013universality
%A Kaur, Jasleen
%A Radicchi, Filippo
%A Menczer, Filippo
%D 2013
%J Journal of Informetrics
%K analysis citation impact scientometrics
%N 4
%P 924--932
%R 10.1016/j.joi.2013.09.002
%T Universality of scholarly impact metrics
%U http://www.sciencedirect.com/science/article/pii/S1751157713000746
%V 7
%X Abstract Given the growing use of impact metrics in the evaluation of scholars, journals, academic institutions, and even countries, there is a critical need for means to compare scientific impact across disciplinary boundaries. Unfortunately, citation-based metrics are strongly biased by diverse field sizes and publication and citation practices. As a result, we have witnessed an explosion in the number of newly proposed metrics that claim to be “universal.” However, there is currently no way to objectively assess whether a normalized metric can actually compensate for disciplinary bias. We introduce a new method to assess the universality of any scholarly impact metric, and apply it to evaluate a number of established metrics. We also define a very simple new metric hs, which proves to be universal, thus allowing to compare the impact of scholars across scientific disciplines. These results move us closer to a formal methodology in the measure of scholarly impact.
@article{kaur2013universality,
abstract = {Abstract Given the growing use of impact metrics in the evaluation of scholars, journals, academic institutions, and even countries, there is a critical need for means to compare scientific impact across disciplinary boundaries. Unfortunately, citation-based metrics are strongly biased by diverse field sizes and publication and citation practices. As a result, we have witnessed an explosion in the number of newly proposed metrics that claim to be “universal.” However, there is currently no way to objectively assess whether a normalized metric can actually compensate for disciplinary bias. We introduce a new method to assess the universality of any scholarly impact metric, and apply it to evaluate a number of established metrics. We also define a very simple new metric hs, which proves to be universal, thus allowing to compare the impact of scholars across scientific disciplines. These results move us closer to a formal methodology in the measure of scholarly impact. },
added-at = {2013-11-07T09:25:31.000+0100},
author = {Kaur, Jasleen and Radicchi, Filippo and Menczer, Filippo},
biburl = {https://www.bibsonomy.org/bibtex/2878a9ef9fbce27d44addc4082b2c3df4/jaeschke},
doi = {10.1016/j.joi.2013.09.002},
interhash = {edbcf37f30ef3189ccf47414f0227489},
intrahash = {878a9ef9fbce27d44addc4082b2c3df4},
issn = {1751-1577},
journal = {Journal of Informetrics },
keywords = {analysis citation impact scientometrics},
number = 4,
pages = {924--932},
timestamp = {2014-07-28T15:57:31.000+0200},
title = {Universality of scholarly impact metrics },
url = {http://www.sciencedirect.com/science/article/pii/S1751157713000746},
volume = 7,
year = 2013
}