Inter-field nonlinear transformation of journal impact indicators: The case of the h-index

[EN] Impact indices used for joint evaluation of research items coming from different scientific fields must be comparable. Often a linear transformation -a normalization or another basic operation-is considered to be enough for providing the correct translation to a unified setting in which all the fields are adequately treated. In this paper it is shown that this is not always true. The attention is centered in the case of the h-index. It is proved that it that cannot be translated by means of direct normalization preserving its genuine meaning. According to the universality of citation distribution, it is shown that a slight variant of the h-index is necessary for this notion to produce comparable values when applied to different scientific fields. A complete example concerning a group of top scientists is shown.The first author was supported by Ministerio de Economia, Industria y Competitividad under Research Grant CSO2015-65594-C2-1R Y 2R (MINECO/FEDER, UE). 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Analiza bibliometryczna współczesnych czasopism z zakresu nauk górniczych

The subject of this doctoral thesis is the bibliometric analysis of selected current Polish journals in the field of mining sciences. The thesis has a theoretical and empirical character. In order to realize the subject of the thesis the following representative journals have been chosen on the basis of formal criterions: Archives of Mining Sciences, Gospodarka Surowcami Mineralnymi-Mineral Resources Management, Przegląd Geologiczny, Przegląd Górniczy, Physicochemical Problems of Mineral Processing and Rudy i Metale Nieżelazne. The main purpose of the thesis was to gain knowledge about Polish literature in the field of mining sciences. The bibliometric image of this literature reflects the current condition of the discipline. Specific research objectives of the doctoral thesis are: (1) an indication of the most cited articles and their age; (2) an indication of the most cited authors and investigation of co-authorship; (3) an indication of journals which play a key role in the field of mining sciences. In order to explore the research questions a bibliometric method, including citation analysis, was used. Data (research material) was collected using BazTech – a database which covers the contents of Polish Technical Journals and the Web of Science Core Collection – an international and multidisciplinary database. Bibliometric analysis was performed on the basis of 5980 articles published in six journals between 1998 and 2012, and 5222 citations obtained from reference lists of articles published in these journals between 2006 and 2012. Data for citation analysis was limited only to those items that refer to articles which are indexed in BazTech. Co-citation maps of journals in the field of mining sciences are presented. The journal co-citation maps were constructed using VOSviewer. References from 1942 articles published in the following international journals: Archives of Mining Sciences, Gospodarka Surowcami Mineralnymi-Mineral Resources Management and Physicochemical Problems of Mineral Processing) in 2007–2017 were taken into account. The Web of Science Core Collection was chosen as a data source 4 for visualizations. A bibliometric study has shown features of investigated literature, such as: the percentage of author and journal self-citations, author and journal productivity, co-authorship and citation age. On the one hand, the similarity of journals is visible at some levels of bibliometric analysis (e.g. Lotka‟s law), on the other there are also some differences (e.g. Bradford‟s law). This doctoral thesis contributes to novel and important knowledge about current literature in the field of mining sciences. The added value of this doctoral thesis is the information it provides on the most cited authors, articles and journals. This information is presented in the form of ranks prepared on the basis of various bibliometric indicators (e.g. number of citations, number of cited items, h-index) and journal co-citation maps