Chad, Steinn, Scott, Rob, and probably many others are stressing/discussing their H-score. Chill. Only certain places would resort to such a crude measure.
I looked up my score. I won't reveal so as not to brag :) (or likewise, so as not to embarrass myself, depending on one's perspective). And then, of course, I looked up others. Plugged in a couple well respected, well established researchers who had comparable numbers to me.
Then I plugged in a couple of real hacks...you know people who copy what others do, add nothing new and publish. Then they tweak the smallest of things which really should have been in the paper they just put out, but they make it into a new paper. The people in the field see they're just padding their CVs, but to those outside, it's much more difficult to see there's nothing there. Of course, their numbers are significantly higher.
I really don't see that this metric avoids the gaming of the system that people do.
3 comments:
Tenure and Official stature are business decisions. Quality is not quantifiable. The number of publications and their Science Citation Index entries (unitless!) automatically fit into a casebook spreadsheet ("see CD in back"). It's a no-brainer (distributed managerial analytic paradigm).
If yer makin' wigits, listen to yer engineers. If yer doin' research, loose yer scientists. If you are selling the company, put Management in charge, grab your money and run away.
So, is it possible to have an H number without having any papers published or even on arXiv? I'm referenced in two arXiv articles and once more in a peer reviewed published neutrino mass paper (five different physicists).
Since I have no papers, they reference my website. The best example is: hep-ph/0605074
Interesting metric. I'm so glad I don't need an academic job.
I know how it feels when you noticed that most of your friends have a higher score than you in spite of your attempts for being better than them.
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