What is the H-Index?
The H-Index
The H-Index was originally proposed by J.E. Hirsch as an attempt to quantify the productivity and impact of a researchers work.1 For example, “An h index of 5 means that a scientist has published five papers that each have at least five citations. An h index of 0 does not inevitably indicate that a scientist has been completely inactive: he or she might have already published a number of papers, but if none of the papers was cited at least once, the h index is 0.”2
Further information about the advantages and disadvantages of this score to measure author productivity or scholarship:
- Alonso S, Cabrerizo FJ, Herrera-Viedma E, Herrera F. h-Index: A review focused in its variants, computation and standardization for different scientific fields. Journal of Informetrics. 2009;3(4):273-289. doi:10.1016/j.joi.2009.04.001
- Bornmann L, Marx W. The h index as a research performance indicator. European Science Editing. 2011;37(3):4.
While often used in the context of a single author, the H-Index has also be used to measure the research output of a group of authors, a single institution, or a journal etc. In addition, more social media platforms are also offering research performance indicators as a complement to the H-Index score such as ResearchGate and Publons (Clarivate Analytics)
H-Index metrics can be obtained through more than one source and an author’s score can differ between these sources. The metric is dependent upon the journal coverage within each database and each source has a unique data pool. H-Index scores are also available from:
- Elsevier
- Scopus
- Mendeley
- Pure
- Clarivate Analytics
- Web of Science
- InCites
- Google Scholar
1. Hirsch JE. An index to quantify an individual's scientific research output. Proc Natl Acad Sci U S A. 2005;102(46):16569-16572.
2. Bornmann L, Daniel HD. The state of h index research. Is the h index the ideal way to measure research performance? In: EMBO Rep. Vol 10.2009:2-6.
When Your Scopus Profile is Wrong - How to Fix You Identity
Every author in Scopus is assigned an Author-ID. In order to retrieve accurate H-Index score, its important that all your publications are correctly associated with your ID. 
Scopus assigns a number for you automatically, but you may have more than one profile in the system. Or, you may find that your publications are assigned to a different author ID. You can make corrections using the Author Feedback Wizard. Please register for a personal account so you can make changes to your Scopus identity, including:
If your citation/document is not available in Scopus and you are sure the journal is covered in Elsevier's coverage policy, contact Scopus to request that the citation/document is added to the database. Click here to access the web form. In the form, select "Add Missing Document" as your reason for contacting the publisher.
