Abstract
The use of citation metrics for evaluation of individual researchers has dramatically increased over the last decade. However, currently existing indices either are based on misleading premises or are cumbersome to implement. This leads to poor assessment of researchers and creates dangerous trends in science, such as overproduction of low quality articles. Here we propose an index (namely, the L-index) that does not depend on the number of publications, accounts for different co-author contributions and age of publications, and scales from 0.0 to 9.9. Moreover, it can be calculated with the help of freely available software.
Highlights
There is an ever-present need to evaluate researchers’ performance, because resources are limited and contenders are numerous
It can be seen from this figure that the Logarithm index (L-index) adequately captures the intuitive ranking, i.e. PhD student < Postdoc < principal investigator (PI) < ... < Albert Einstein
It allows the objective quantitative assessment of researchers, which is a virtue that traditional peer review cannot accomplish
Summary
A citation-based, author- and age-normalized, logarithmic index for evaluation of individual researchers independently of publication counts [version 1; peer review: 2 approved].
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