A critical view of the h-index:: observations based on a practical application

The possible use of h-index in the evaluation of individual researchers has raised great concern among policy-makers and scientists themselves. Research is needed to determine the advantages and limitations of this new indicator A study of publications in the Web of Science, 1994-2004, applied the h-index to researchers working in the natural resources area at the Spanish Council for Scientific Research (CSIC). One of the findings presented is that the h-index detected the most outstanding scientists; however scientists who follow a selective publication strategy, publishing a relatively low number of documents that are frequently cited, could be penalized for this approach in h-index based evaluations. The authors emphasize the need to avoid the specific limitations of each indicator by combining indicators in the evaluation process.