Page 225 - Becoming Metric Wise

216 Becoming Metric-Wise

The career years h-index by publications of the author in Table 7.4 is 5.
The h-core consists of the years {2014, 2013, 2012, 2011, 2009}.
Meaning of this indicator
It is conceivable that two scientists have the same number of pub-
lications but that for one of them, publications are more or less evenly
distributed over their career, while for the other publications are heavily
concentrated (say, around the year of their doctoral dissertation). The career
years h-index by publications makes a distinction between these two cases.
The h-core of the career years h-index by publications brings together
those years in which the scientist was—relatively speaking—the most active.

Case 2: Citations and publication years: the career years h-index by citations
For each year we determine the sum of all citations received by publica-
tions written in that year (note that we do not consider the year in which
citations are received). Again, many variants are possible by restricting publi-
cations, similar to the career years h-index by publications. The years in this
time series are arranged in descending order of citations. This again is a typi-
cal h-type list. The career years h-index by citations is then defined as the
highest rank such that during the first h publication years (in the list, not
chronologically) at least h citations were received. The corresponding h-core
consists of the first h years, whereincaseofequality on rank h the most
recent years are preferred. A fictitious example is shown in Table 7.5 for
which the career years h-index by citations is 7.

Table 7.5 An author’s career years h-index by citations

Rank Publication Number of
year citations received
1 2001 29
2 2010 25
3 2011 19
4 1999 19
5 2000 15
6 2012 13
7 2008 11
8 2006 7
9 2005 7
10 2003 3