Bartneck Christoph, Kokkelmans Servaas
Scientometrics. 2011 Apr;87(1):85-98. doi: 10.1007/s11192-010-0306-5. Epub 2010 Nov 11.
The h-index has received an enormous attention for being an indicator that measures the quality of researchers and organizations. We investigate to what degree authors can inflate their h-index through strategic self-citations with the help of a simulation. We extended Burrell's publication model with a procedure for placing self-citations, following three different strategies: random self-citation, recent self-citations and h-manipulating self-citations. The results show that authors can considerably inflate their h-index through self-citations. We propose the q-index as an indicator for how strategically an author has placed self-citations, and which serves as a tool to detect possible manipulation of the h-index. The results also show that the best strategy for an high h-index is publishing papers that are highly cited by others. The productivity has also a positive effect on the h-index.
h指数作为衡量研究人员和组织质量的指标受到了极大关注。我们借助模拟研究了作者通过策略性自引能在多大程度上提高其h指数。我们在伯勒尔的发表模型基础上增加了一个放置自引的程序，遵循三种不同策略：随机自引、近期自引和操纵h指数的自引。结果表明，作者可以通过自引大幅提高其h指数。我们提出q指数作为衡量作者策略性放置自引程度的指标，它可作为检测h指数可能被操纵的工具。结果还表明，对于高h指数而言，最佳策略是发表被他人高度引用的论文。生产力对h指数也有积极影响。
