How to Evaluate The Quality of An International Researcher: H index, Citations & Number of Papers

How to Evaluate The Quality of An International Researcher: H index, Citations & Number of Papers

Prof. Hendry Izaac Elim

Indonesia physicist

Pattimura university

Talking about a scholar is always in a deep relationship with the quality of knowledge and understanding as well as wisdom in a particular field.

The evaluation of a researcher is very difficult to be judged and reviewed by common people.

The problem of such complicated quality is mainly due to the complex variables that are directly associated with the level of a scholar.

There were many efforts to study the solution of the quality mystery. One of the best outcome was from the invention of H index by Prof. Hirsch, a world theoretical physicist who published the researcher significant parameter from the deep search of Web of Science (WOS) database in 2005 and 2007. The results were published in a reputable journal called as Proceeding National Academy of Sciences (PNAS). 

According to the research, H index which is calculated based on the citations of papers and the number of cited papers. The data was then implemented to Nobel laureates papers data base extracted from WOS. He obtained that the average H index of Nobel winner was ~30.  It means that the author must have at least 30 published papers and each of the paper must have at least 30 citations. 

Since the discovery of the H index parameter, both WOS and SCOPUS as high quality scientific database companies have employed the use of the variable to evaluate the quality of a researcher.