The pros and cons of computing the h‐index using Web of Science
| Published date | 26 September 2008 |
| DOI | https://doi.org/10.1108/14684520810914043 |
| Pages | 673-688 |
| Date | 26 September 2008 |
| Author | Péter Jacsó |
| Subject Matter | Information & knowledge management,Library & information science |
SAVVY SEARCHING
The pros and cons of computing
the h-index using Web of Science
Pe
´ter Jacso
´
University of Hawaii, Laie, Hawaii, USA
Abstract
Purpose – The purpose of this paper, the fourth in a series, is to discuss the pros and cons of the
h-index in the Web of Science (WoS).
Design/methodology/approach – The paper looks at the content and software advantages and
disadvantages of WoS from the perspective of calculating the h-index as a single measure of published
research output and influence at the individual researcher level.
Findings – The paper finds that there are notable similarities and differences between WoS and
Scopus, and that any WoS edition has a unique and important feature. As opposed to other cited
reference enhanced databases, WoS always includes all the cited references for every record created,
irrespective of the publication year.
Originality/value – The paper provides insights into the advantages and disadvantages of WoS
from the perspective of calculating the h-index.
Keywords Indexing, Databases,Information retrieval, Research
Paper type Research paper
Introduction
The background to this analysis was laid out in the introductory overview (Jacso
´,
2008b), which discussed the plausibility of computing the h-index of scholarly
publishing productivity and the impact of researchers using reference enhanced
databases. It presented essential database content and software features for calculating
a reasonable h-index for researchers, using examples from a number of citation
enhanced databases. This was followed by reviews of the advantages and limitations of
Google Scholar (GS) (Jacso
´, 2008c) and Scopus (Jacso
´, 2008d) for computing the h-index.
This fourth part of the series looks at the content and software advantages and
disadvantages of Web of Science (WoS) from the perspective of calculating the h-index
as a single measure of published research output and influence at the individual
researcher level. Discussion and comments about methodological issues related to
determining and/or estimating the vital statistics of the databases for computing
the h-index (total number of records, percentage of the total number of cited reference
enhanced records, their distribution across the years and among document types) have
also been included.
Those readers who are not familiar with the three major multidisciplinary reference
enhanced systems will find indepth reviews for general background information in
several papers (Dess, 2006; Fingerman, 2005, 2006; Goodman, 2004; Goodman and
Deis, 2007; Jacso
´, 2007a, c, 2008a; Mayr and Walter, 2007; Myhill, 2005; Neuhaus and
Daniel, 2008; Neuhaus et al.2006, 2008; Noruzi, 2005; Robinson and Wusteman, 2007;
Tenopir, 2005; Vine, 2006; White, 2006; Wleklinski, 2005). Evaluation of these sources,
The current issue and full text archive of this journal is available at
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h-index using
Web of Science
673
Online Information Review
Vol. 32 No. 5, 2008
pp. 673-688
qEmerald Group Publishing Limited
1468-4527
DOI 10.1108/14684520810914043
with emphasis on their citation analysis capabilities or related matters such as breadth
of source coverage, are discussed (among others) in Bauer and Bakkalbasi (2005),
de Moya-Anegon et al. (2007), Gavel and Iselid (2008), Jacso
´(1998, 2005a, b, 2006, 2007b),
Meho and Yang (2007b), Yang and Meho (2006) and Walters (2007). Papers addressing
the theoretical and practical aspects of the h-index itself for the purpose of evaluating
and comparing the publishing performance of scholars, beyond the seminal work of
Hirsch (2005), include Bar-Ilan, 2006, 2008; Bar-Ilan et al., 2007; Bornmann and Daniel,
2005; Cronin and Meho, 2006; Gla
¨nzel and Persson, 2005; Harzing and van der Wal, 2008;
Iglesias and Pecharroman, 2006; Jeang, 2007; Norris and Oppenheim, 2007; Oppenheim,
2007; Sanderson, 2008 and Vinkler, 2007. Those papers that compare two or more
systems are of particular interest.
Content issues
WoS is available in many different versions (editions) and always needs clear
identification by qualifying its name with years of coverage as it depends on what
content the library chooses to license. The century edition is the most comprehensive,
covering publications from 1900 in the sciences, 1956 in the social sciences and 1975 in
the arts and humanities. It is to be understood that within these timeframes for the
components, it is the library that decides the start of the time span. For example, my
library at the University of Hawaii chose 1980 for each component. Another library may
choose only the sciences component, but going back to, say, 1900 or 1945, depending on a
variety of reasons. These may include the disciplinary composition, the weights or
importance of the courses offered by the university or of the research fields, or grant
applications applied for by research and/or teaching faculty researchers at the parent
institutes. The availability at the library of other, discipline-specific, cited reference
enhanced databases that can be used directly or indirectly for calculating the h-index,
such as the Astrophysics Data System (ADS), the Physics Review Online Archive
(PROLA) or the CSA Illumina implementation of the PsycINFO database, may also
influence the choice of what edition is licensed and used (There are several
implementations of PsycINFO and other databases of the American Psychological
Association, but for various reasons the other editions by Ebsco, Ovid, O CLC and Dialog
do not make it possible to calculate the h-index and none of them reports the h-index
automatically. At least, the CSA version allows the export of records into RefWorks with
the citedness count so users can calculate the h-index).
The edition of WoS can significantly influence the h-index of the subjects evaluated,
depending on the scientific age of the researchers whose publications are analysed, i.e.
when they started publishing scholarly papers, what percentage of the journals in
which they published were classified into one or more of the three main disciplinary
components of WoS, and how consistently.
For the statistics and examples in this review, the WoS Century edition covering the
1900-2008 period was used in the first week of July, unless otherwise noted.
It is essential to know that any WoS edition has a unique and important feature.
As opposed to other cited reference enhanced databases, WoS always includes all the
cited references for every record created, irrespective of the publication year.
This is in contrast with Scopus, which includes cited reference information only for
records of papers published from 1996 onward (There is a negligible set of nearly 7,300
records enhanced by cited references for papers published before 1996.). In GS, this is a
OIR
32,5
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