The h-index is used to measure both the productivity and citation impact of an author’s publications. Initially used for a scholar and/or individual scientist. So, how the h-index is counted? Here i provided some case studies for your better understanding.
- If an author have 3 papers with 30 citations for the first paper, 2 citations for second paper and 1 citation for the third paper, his/her h-index should be 2, that is because the citations for both second and third papers are not enough, to achieve 3 for the h-index, at least 3 citations needed for the second and third papers. Although there are many citations for the first paper but it should be balance for the others.
- If an author have 1 paper with 25 citations, the h-index of the author will be 1 (only 1 paper) although the citations for the only paper is more than 1.
- Conceptually, if an author have 5 papers in total, the highest h-index of the author will only be 5. To achieve the highest h-index, the author needed to have minimum 5 citations of each of his/her paper. If the author want to improve his/her h-index, more publications needed.
- Generally, h-index is counted on both total publications (to decide the highest h-index to be achieved) and total citations to achieve the highest h-index (each paper has at least the number of citations equal to the highest h-index).
