A Rejoinder on Energy versus Impact Indicators

Citation distributions are so skewed that using the mean or any other central tendency measure is ill-advised. Unlike G. Prathap's scalar measures (Energy, Exergy, and Entropy or EEE), the Integrated Impact Indicator (I3) is based on non-parametric statistics using the (100) percentiles of the distribution. Observed values can be tested against expected ones; impact can be qualified at the article level and then aggregated.Comment: Scientometrics, in pres

Bibliometric scoring of an individual’s research output in science and engineering

The relevance of various citation metrics used for parameterization of the research outputs of scientists is reviewed. The rationale of judging the performance of scientists on the basis of the total number of research papers published, the total citations received for these papers or the average citation reckoning per paper has often been criticized. The significance of impact factor of journals in which the papers have appeared has also been debated. The h-index introduced by Jorge E. Hirsch in 2005 has gained some acceptance in this regard but its value is highly dependent on the academic discipline concerned and also varies across sub-disciplines. Because citation practices exhibit wide variations among different fields, a scientist working in a particular discipline need not be disheartened with a low h-index as compared to fellow scientists of a different discipline. The h-index has been successful in assessing the performance of scientists of the same field and at the same stage of their careers. By appropriately scaling the discipline-dependence of h-index, it has also enabled comparison among those working in different disciplines, serving as a simplified, robust, intelligible measure. Several metrics proposed to overcome the flaws of h-index are briefly described

DISSERTATION

This particular research aims to investigate the p-index or performance indicator proposed by Prathap in 2010. The concept of analogy between such branches of physics as mechanical and electrical physics, kinetics, thermodynamics and scientometric field was assumed, and it seems to be an incredibly interesting consilience. Perceiving standard bibliometric measures as an energy which each paper carries, allow us to operate with these numbers in a new way. P index, which is calculated as p=X1/3 =(iC)1/3=(c/pC)1/3=(c2/p)1/3, where C is the total number of citations received and P is the total number of publications, were computed for 499 top productive authors affiliated with Malaysian institutuions, who were retrieved from Web of Science Database..