Citation-based criteria of the significance of the research activity of scientific teams

Abstract

The objective of this research is elaborating new criteria for evaluating the significance of the research results achieved by scientific teams. It is known, that the h-index (Hirsch index) is used to evaluate scientific organizations, as well as individual scientific workers. On the one hand, such a scientometric indicator as the "h-index of a scientific organization" reflects the organization's scientific potential objectively. On the other hand, it does not always adequately reflect the significance that the results of a scientific team's research activity have for the scientific megaenvironment (scientific community). The i-index has an even greater disadvantage, being principally limited by the size of a scientific team, although h-index is also dependent on the number of publications. Not trying to diminish the significance of the traditional parameters for monitoring the research activity of scientific organizations, including the institutions of higher education, the authors stress the necessity of using not only the traditional indicators, but also other parameters reflecting the significance of a scientific team's research results for the scientific community. It should also not be forgotten that a scientific team is a social system whose functioning is not limited to the "sum" of individual scientific workers' activities. The authors suggest new criteria of significance of research activity of scientific teams, which are suitable for the specific usage, hence they (the indicators) should be used with great caution; it is most appropriate to use the authors' criteria for analyzing the dynamics of the research activity of scientific teams (following the principle "Compare yourself with yesterday's yourself"). The authors' proposed citation-based indicators make it possible to evaluate the true significance of research activity of a scientific team for the scientific community; while defining and justifying the new criteria, the authors also took into consideration the actuality of such a problem as the struggle with the self-citation effect (in a wider context--the problem of struggling with the artificial "improvement" of the scientometric indicators). The methodological basis of the research is formed by the system, metasystem, probability statistic, synergetic, sociological and qualimetric approaches. The research methods are the analysis of the problem situation, the analysis of the scientific literature and the best practices of research activity management at the institutions of higher education (benchmarking), the cognitive, structural---functional and mathematical modelling, the methods of graph, set and relation theory, the methods of qualimetry (the theory of latent variables), the methods of probability theory and mathematical statistics.