The Disadvantages of Using Scientometric Indicators in the Digital Age

Abstract

Scientometric data is now widely used in solving personnel issues, grants, and financing universities, as well as monitoring their activities. However, in the course of the study using a variety of theoretical and practical methods, it was found that the main scientometric indicators, such as the total number of publications, citation index, and Hirsch Index, even in the aggregate, can rarely give a relatively objective picture of the real scholarly contribution of a particular researcher or team. Therefore, the problem of expanding the list of basic scientometric indicators and the use of new scientometric instruments (as an example, the quartile index developed by the author) becomes more urgent than ever. It is necessary to abandon the indexing of “Collider publications,” self-citations, and negative links and go from the calculation of single citations to the full accounting of all references to the author’s work. In the era of digital technology it will not be difficult to implement at least some of such recommendations. After all, the more diverse the scientometric indicators are, the more fully and more accurately they will reflect the publication activity of an individual author, team, or university as a whole.