The w-index: A measure to assess scientific impact by focusing on widely cited papers

Based on the principles of the h-index, I propose a new measure, the w-index, as a particularly simple and more useful way to assess the substantial impact of a researcher's work, especially regarding excellent papers. The w-index can be defined as follows: If w of a researcher's papers have at least 10w citations each and the other papers have fewer than 10(w+1) citations, that researcher's w-index is w. The results demonstrate that there are noticeable differences between the w-index and the h-index, because the w-index plays close attention to the more widely cited papers. These discrepancies can be measured by comparing the ranks of 20 astrophysicists, a few famous physical scientists, and 16 Price medalists. Furthermore, I put forward the w(q)-index to improve the discriminatory power of the w-index and to rank scientists with the same w. The factor q is the least number of citations a researcher with w needed to reach w+1. In terms of both simplicity and accuracy, the w-index or w(q)-index can be widely used for evaluation of scientists, journals, conferences, scientific topics, research institutions, and so on. © 2010 Wiley Periodicals, Inc.

[1]  Philip Ball,et al.  Index aims for fair ranking of scientists , 2005, Nature.

[2]  J. E. Hirsch,et al.  An index to quantify an individual's scientific research output , 2005, Proc. Natl. Acad. Sci. USA.

[3]  W. Glänzel,et al.  A Hirsch-type index for journals [1] , 2005 .

[4]  Liming Liang,et al.  h-index sequence and h-index matrix: Constructions and applications , 2006, Scientometrics.

[5]  Lokman I. Meho,et al.  Using the h-index to rank influential information scientistss: Brief Communication , 2006 .

[6]  Michael G. Banks.  An extension of the Hirsch index: Indexing scientific topics and compounds , 2006, Scientometrics.

[7]  L. Egghe,et al.  Theory and practise of the g-index , 2006, Scientometrics.

[8]  Lokman I. Meho,et al.  Using the h-index to rank influential information scientists , 2006, J. Assoc. Inf. Sci. Technol..

[9]  A. D. Jackson,et al.  Measures for measures , 2006, Nature.

[10]  Yang Tao,et al.  A Study on Development Planning for Management Science and Engineering , 2006 .

[11]  L. Egghe.  An improvement of the h-index: the g-index , 2006 .

[12]  Sune Lehmann,et al.  A quantitative analysis of indicators of scientific performance , 2008, Scientometrics.

[13]  R. Rousseau,et al.  The R- and AR-indices: Complementing the h-index , 2007 .

[14]  Richard S. J. Tol,et al.  Rational (successive) h-indices: An application to economics in the Republic of Ireland , 2008, Scientometrics.

[15]  Yannis Manolopoulos,et al.  Generalized Hirsch h-index for disclosing latent facts in citation networks , 2007, Scientometrics.

[16]  Philip Ball,et al.  Achievement index climbs the ranks , 2007, Nature.

[17]  J. Olden,et al.  How do ecological journals stack-up? Ranking of scientific quality according to the h index , 2007 .

[18]  Jean-François Molinari,et al.  Mathematical aspects of a new criterion for ranking scientific institutions based on the h-index , 2008, Scientometrics.

[19]  Peter Vinkler,et al.  Eminence of scientists in the light of the h-index and other scientometric indicators , 2007, J. Inf. Sci..

[20]  András Schubert,et al.  Successive h-indices , 2007, Scientometrics.

[21]  Lutz Bornmann,et al.  Are there better indices for evaluation purposes than the h index? A comparison of nine different variants of the h index using data from biomedicine , 2008, J. Assoc. Inf. Sci. Technol..

[22]  Qiang Wu.  The w-index: A significant improvement of the h-index , 2008 .

[23]  Leo Egghe,et al.  An h-index weighted by citation impact , 2008, Inf. Process. Manag..

[24]  Michael Schreiber,et al.  To share the fame in a fair way, hm modifies h for multi-authored manuscripts , 2008 .

[25]  A. Packer,et al.  Comparison of scientists of the Brazilian Academy of Sciences and of the National Academy of Sciences of the USA on the basis of the h-index. , 2008, Brazilian journal of medical and biological research = Revista brasileira de pesquisas medicas e biologicas.