Are there really two types of h index variants? A validation study by using molecular life sciences data

Abstract

Due to the disadvantages of the h index that have been named since Hirsch's first publication of the index in 2005 (Hirsch, 2005), a number of variants that are intended to compensate for the weaknesses have been proposed. Bornmann et al (2008a, 2009b) tested (1) whether the variants developed are associated with an incremental contribution for evaluation purposes against the h index, (2) whether there is any need at all for the h index and its variants besides standard bibliometric measures and (3) which of the h index and its variants predict peer assessments of scientific performance at best. As all results of Bornmann et al (2008a, 2009b) are based on bibliometric data on post-doctoral research fellowship recipients of the Boehringer Ingelheim Fonds, it will be important to test whether the results can be validated using other data sets. Therefore, we examined in this study 693 applicants to the Long-Term Fellowship programme of the European Molecular Biology Organization whether the results found by Bornmann et al (2008a, 2009b) can be validated using another data set and further h index variants. All in all, with the findings in this study all results to the h index and its variants could be validated that are reported in Bornmann et al (2008a, 2009b).