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Current Drug Research Reviews

Editor-in-Chief

ISSN (Print): 2589-9775
ISSN (Online): 2589-9783

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Editorial

The H-index in Life and Health Sciences: Advantages, Drawbacks and Challenging Opportunities

Author(s): Ricardo Jorge Dinis-Oliveira*

Volume 11, Issue 2, 2019

Page: [82 - 84] Pages: 3

DOI: 10.2174/258997751102191111141801

Abstract

In recent years, there has been a significant increase in the number of scientific publications. The h-index offers a consistent estimation method about a researcher’s overall scientific achievements since it combines the total number of publications (i.e., productivity) and the number of citations (i.e., quality of those publications). In other words, the h-index is intended to measure simultaneously the quality and quantity of scientific output in a cumulative approach and does not provide data regarding the recent productivity. This editorial presents advantages and limitations of h-index that all researchers in health sciences need to be aware of, especially if this metric is used for professional progression, and discusses the simple modification indexed to “academic/scientific age”. It is obvious that no single metric is perfect, and the use of two or more metrics is more prone to success.

Keywords: h-index, m-index, limitations, advantages, citation impact, author profiles.

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