The Use of Fi-Index Tool to Assess Per-manuscript Self-citations

Abstract

Bibliometric parameters are now increasingly used in the evaluation of scientific research and researchers/authors. Over the years, different indices have been taken into consideration with the aim of “quantifying” different authors. A new index was recently defined, the Fi-index, with the aim of evaluate how much the h-index of a given author is influenced by his self-citations. The purpose of this work is to apply the Fi-index, not to the entire career of the author, as normally happens, but to the single paper in course of publication, so as to verify or certify that a specific manuscript does not affect the h-index or citations from the single author or authors. Fi-index tool score measure the impact of a paper on author career and it is obtained by a simple calculation that could be made with an online tool (www.fident.eu/fidentresearch/fiindextool). The use of fi-index tool could be useful as a guarantee parameter on a specific manuscript, obviously provided that a particular author could have a scientific research trend. It is hoped that this index will be used on a large scale for scientific publications affected by bibliometric parameters.