FAQ Group: Bibliometrics & citation analysis

Go to Web of Science and click on Cited Reference Search

The Hirsch index or h–index is a domain-dependent index that measures the “career impact” of the publications of a scientific researcher. The h–index was defined in 2005 by physicist Jorge E. Hirsch in an article in PNAS.

An instruction to calculate your h-index can be found here.

1. State names unambiguously. Then you are easier to find.
   • Always include Erasmus MC in the affiliation.
   • Use one standardized name for the research group or institute.
   • Use a maximum of 2 layers for the attribution; the name of the university and the name of the research institute.
   • Use one unambiguous author name. Always use the same initials.
   • For more information see: Affiliation en Author Name and ID.
     
2. Publish in English in quality magazines with high impact factors. The impact factors can be found in the Journal Citation Reports (JCR).
   
3. Choose to publish in journals that are indexed in Web of Science or Scopus.
   
4. Publish in open access journals, which are included in databases such as Springer Open Choice, BMC (BioMed Central), PLoS. This has a major effect on visibility and thus global participation in science.
   
5. Seek international cooperation. This increases the impact of publications. This increases the visibility of research.
   
6. Make yourself visible by posting information publicly on the internet.
   • Place pre- and post prints in open access (preferably via the repository of Erasmus MC and EUR: RePub).
   • Use Wikipedia.
   • Blog about your research.
   • Use ResearchGate.

Impact factors or quartile scores are not available for some journals. That may be because the journal is not included in the list of Journal Citation Reports (JCR). It may also be that the journal is new. A score can only be calculated once the journal has been in existence for a number of years.

Both organizations calculate a journal ranking and a quartile score, but in a slightly different way and using a different source. The rankings are not directly comparable.

The “Impact Factors” en “Quartile” of JCR (www.jcr.clarivate.com) is calculated by Clarivate using Web of Science Core Collection as the source.

Scimago (https://www.scimagojr.com/journalrank.php) calculates “Scimage Journal Rank” (SJR) and “Quartile” using Scopus (Elsevier) as the source.

The calculation of impact factors and quartile scores requires data from entire calendar years. Impact factors and quartile scores for this year are not yet available. Last year’s scores will not be available until about June of this year.