The hb-index, a modified h-index designed to more fairly assess author achievement

Abstract

The h-index characterizes the publication achievement/impact of authors and is defined by the originator Jorge Hirsch as: 'the number of papers with citation number ≥h'. The h-index has the inherent characteristic that authors with very different total citations can have the same h-index. In fact, no contributions to the h-index are made either by papers cited fewer times than h, or citations of an individual paper above h. Such citations are 'excess' citations not credited by the h-index. To address these deficiencies, we propose a simple, straightforward modification, the hb-index: hb = h + e, where h is the Hirsch h-index and e is the sum of all citations minus h2. Therefore, e is the excess citations not credited by the h-index. © W.S. Maney & Son Ltd 2012.