Abstract
Bibliometric indicators, citation counts and/or download counts are increasingly being used to inform personnel decisions such as hiring or promotions. These statistics are very often misused. Here we provide a guide to the factors which should be considered when using these so-called quantitative measures to evaluate people. Rules of thumb are given for when begin to use bibliometric measures when comparing otherwise similar candidates.
Highlights
Bibliometric indicators, citation counts and/or download counts are increasingly being used to inform personnel decisions such as hiring or promotions
Careers can be greatly affected by the decisions which flow from bibliometric evaluations. [1, 2]
Using samples and measures designed to minimize the systematic errors in the measurements we can determine the intrinsic scatter in the use of bibliometric techniques to evaluate people
Summary
Bibliometric indicators, citation counts and/or download counts are increasingly being used to inform personnel decisions such as hiring or promotions. Measures such as citation or download counts are not important in themselves, they are proxies for evaluating the (research) capabilities of an individual. The statistical scatter, even with “perfect” input data in these measures is quite large, and puts limits on any attempt to use the data to evaluate people.
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