Evaluating journal quality: Is the H-index a better measure than impact factors?

Research on Social Work Practice

Volumn 21, Issue 2, 2011, Pages 222-230

  Hodge, David R ^a   Lacasse, Jeffrey R ^a  

^a ARIZONA STATE UNIVERSITY   (United States)

Author keywords

Bibliometrics; h index; Impact factors; Journal quality

Indexed keywords

EID: 79751513620     PISSN: 10497315     EISSN: 15527581     Source Type: Journal    
DOI: 10.1177/1049731510369141     Document Type: Article

References (65)

1. Althouse, B.M., West, J.D., Bergstrom, C.T., & Bergstrom, T. (2009). Differences in impact factors across fields and over time. Journal of the American Society for Information Science and Technology, 60, 27-34.
2. Ashkanasy, N.M. (2007). Playing the citation game. Journal of Organizational Behavior, 28, 643-645.
3. Babbie, E. (2007). The practice of social research (11th ed.). Belmont, CA: Thomson/ Wadsworth.
4. Bador, P., & Lafouge, T. (2010). Comparative analysis between impact factor and h-index for pharmacology and psychiatry journals. Scientometrics, 84(1), 65-69.
5. Bakkalbasi, N., Bauer, K., Glover, J., & Wang, L. (2006). Three options for citation tracking: Google Scholar, Scopus and Web of Science. Biomedical Digital Libraries, 3. Retrieved December 3, 2010, from http://www.bio-diglib.com/content/3/1/7.
6. Baneyx, A. (2008). "Publish or Perish" as citation metrics used to analyze scientific output in the humanities: International case studies in economics, geography, social sciences, philosophy, and history. Archivum Immunologiae et Therapiae Experimentalis, 56, 363-371.
7. Barendse, W. (2007). The strike rate index: A new index for journal quality based on journal size and the h-index of citations. Biomedical Digital Libraries, 4, 1-7.
8. Barker, K.L., & Thyer, B.A. (2005). An empirical evaluation of the editorial practices of social work journals: Voices of authors published in 2000. Journal of Social Service Research, 32, 17-31.
9. Bergstrom, C. (2007). Eigenfactor: Measuring the value and prestige of scholarly journals. C&RL News, 68. Retrieved December 3, 2010, from http://www.ala.org/ala/mgrps/divs/acrl/publications/crlnews/backissues2007/may07/eigenfactor.cfm.
10. Braun, T., Glanzel, W., & Schubert, A. (2006). A Hirsch-type index for journals. Scientometrics, 69, 169-173.
11. Brumback, R.A. (2009). Impact factor wars: Episode V-The empire strikes back. Journal of Child Neurology, 24, 260-262.
12. Cameron, B.D. (2005). Trends in the usage of ISI bibliometric data: Uses, abuses, and implications. Portal: Libraries and the Academy, 5, 105-125.
13. Clarke, R. (2008). An exploratory study of information systems researcher impact. Communications of the Association for Information Systems, 22, 1-32.
14. Cnaan, R.A., Caputo, R.K., & Shmuely, Y. (1994). Senior faculty perceptions of social work journals. Journal of Social Work Education, 30, 185-199.
15. Cohen, J. (1988). Statistical power analysis for the behavioral sciences (2nd ed.). Hillsdale, NJ: Lawrence Erlbaum Associates.
16. Epstein, W.M. (2004). Conformational response bias and the quality of the editorial processes among American social work journals. Research on Social Work Practice, 14, 450-458.
17. Falagas, M.E., Pitsouni, E.I., Malietzis, G.A., & Pappas, G. (2008). Comparison of PubMed, Scopus, Web of Science, and Google Scholar: Strengths and weaknesses. The FASEB Journal, 22, 338-342.
18. Favaloro, E.J. (2009). The journal impact factor: Don't expect its demise any time soon. Clinical Chemistry and Laboratory Medicine, 47, 1319-1324.
19. Franceschet, M. (2010). A comparison of bibliometric indicators for computer science scholars and journals on Web of Science and Google Scholar. Scientometrics, 83, 243-258.
20. Furr, A.L. (1995). The relative influence of social work journals: Impact factors vs. core influence. Journal of Social Work Education, 31, 38-45.
21. Green, R.G. (2008). Tenure and promotion decisions: The relative importance of teaching, scholarship, and service. Journal of Social Work Education, 44, 117-127.
22. Green, R.G., & Baskind, F.R. (2007). The second decade of the faculty publication project: Journal article publications and the importance of faculty scholarship. Journal of Social Work Education, 43, 281-295.
23. Green, R.G., Bellin, M.H., & Baskind, F.G. (2002). Results of the doctoral faculty publication project: Journal article productivity and its correlates in the 1990s. Journal of Social Work Education, 38, 135-152.
24. Ha, T.C., Tan, S.B., & Soo, K.C. (2006). The journal impact factor: Too much of an impact? Annals of the Academy of Medicine, Singapore, 35, 911-916.
25. Harzing, A.W. (2010). Publish or Perish (Version 2.8) [software program]. Retrieved December 27, 2009, from http://www.harzing.com/pop.htm.
26. Harzing, A.W., & van der Wal, R. (2008a, August 8-13). A Google Scholar h-index for journals: A better metric to measure journal impact in economics and business? Paper presented at the 2008 Academy of Management Annual Meeting, Anaheim, CA.
27. Harzing, A.W.K., & van der Wal, R. (2008b). Google Scholar as a new source for citation analysis. Ethics in Science and Environmental Politics, 8, 61-73.
28. Harzing, A.W., & van der Wal, R. (2009). A Google Scholar h-index for journals: An alternative metric to measure journal impact in economics and business. Journal of the American Society for Information Science and Technology, 60, 41-46.
29. Hirsch, J.E. (2005). An index to quantify an individual's scientific research output. Proceedings of the National Academy of Sciences, 102, 16569-16572.
30. Holden, G., Barker, K., Covert-Vail, L., Rosenberg, G., & Cohen, S.A. (2008). Does Social Work Abstracts work? Research on Social Work Practice, 18, 487-499.
31. Holden, G., Rosenberg, G., Barker, K., & Onghena, P. (2006). An assessment of the predictive validity of impact factor scores: Implications for academic employment decisions in social work. Research on Social Work Practice, 16, 613-624.
32. Holden G., Rosenberg G. & Barker K. (Eds.). (2005). Bibliometrics in social work. Binghamton, NY: Haworth Press.
33. Jacobs, J.A. (2009). Assessing the visibility of articles published in Gender & Society with Google Scholar. Gender & Society, 23, 817-832.
34. Jenson, J.M. (2005). Structural factors and the quality of publication in social work journals. Social Work Research, 29, 67-71.
35. Journal Citation Reports. (2008). Information for new users index (Documentation Version 4.5). Retrieved December 27, 2009, from http://admin-apps.isiknowledge.com.ezproxy1.lib.asu.edu/JCR/help/h_index.htm.
36. Keloharju, M. (2008). What's new in finance? European Financial Management, 14, 564-608.
37. Kline, P. (2000). The handbook of psychology testing (2nd ed.). New York, NY: Routledge.
38. Kousha, K., & Thelwall, M. (2008). Sources of Google Scholar citations outside the Science Citation Index: A comparison between four science disciplines. Scientometrics, 74, 273-294.
39. Kulkarni, A.V., Aziz, B., Shams, I., & Busse, J.W. (2009). Comparisons of citations in Web of Science, Scopus, and Google Scholar for articles published in general medical journals. The Journal of the American Medical Association, 302, 1092-1096.
40. Lee, J., Kraus, K.L., & Couldwell, W.T. (2009). Use of the h index in neurosurgery. Journal of Neurosurgery, 111, 387-392.
41. Leydesdorff, L. (2008). Caveats for the use of citation indicators in research and journal evaluations. Journal of the American Society for Information Science and Technology, 59, 278-287.
42. Ligon, J., & Thyer, B.A. (2001). Academic affiliations of social work journal authors: A productivity analysis from 1994-1998. Journal of Social Service Research, 28, 69-81.
43. Ligon, J., & Thyer, B.A. (2005). Bibliometrics and social work: A two-edged sword can still be a blunt instrument. Social Work in Health Care, 41, 123-128.
44. Martinez-Brawley, E.E., & Zorita, P.M. -B. (2007). Tacit and codified knowledge in social work: A critique of standardization in education and practice. Families in Society, 88, 534-542.
45. McGarty, C. (2000). The citation impact factor in social psychology: A bad statistic that encourages bad science? Current Research in Social Psychology, 5, 1-16.
46. Meho, L.I., & Yang, K. (2007). Impact of data sources on citation counts and rankings of LIS faculty: Web of Science versus Scopus and Google Scholar. Journal of the American Society for Information Science and Technology, 58, 2105-2125.
47. Mikki, S. (2010). Comparing Google Scholar and ISI Web of Science for Earth Sciences. Scientometrics, 82, 321-331.
48. Mingers, J. (2009). Measuring the research contribution of management academics using the Hirsch-index. Journal of the Operational Research Society, 60, 1143-1153.
49. Moussa, S., & Touzani, M. (2010). Ranking marking journals using the Google Scholar-based h-index. Journal of Informetrics, 4, 107-117.
50. Olden, J.D. (2007). How do ecological journals stack-up? Ranking of scientific quality according to the h-index. Ecoscience, 14, 370-376.
51. PLoS Medicine Editors (2006). The impact factor game. PLoS Medicine, 3, e291.
52. Radicchi, P., Fortunato, S., & Castellano, C. (2008). Universality of citation distributions: Toward an objective measure of scientific impact. Proceedings of the National Academy of Sciences, 105, 17268-17272.
53. Saad, G. (2006). Exploring the h-index at the author and journal levels using bibliometric data of productive consumer scholars and business-related journals respectively. Scientometrics, 69, 117-120.
54. Seglen, P.O. (1997). Why the impact factor of journals should not be used for evaluating research. British Medical Journal, 314, 498-502.
55. Seipel, M.M.O. (2003). Assessing publication for tenure. Journal of Social Work Education, 39, 79-88.
56. Sellers, S.L., Mathiesen, S.G., Smith, T., & Perry, R. (2006). Perceptions of professional social work journals: Findings from a national study. Journal of Social Work Education, 42, 139-160.
57. Sellers, S.L., Perry, R., & Mathiesen, & Smith, T. (2004). Evaluation of social work journal quality: Citation versus reputation approaches. Journal of Social Work Education, 40, 143-160.
58. Smith, A.G. (2008). Benchmarking Google Scholar with New Zealand PBRF. Scientometrics, 74, 309-316.
59. Spivey, C.A., & Wilks, S.E. (2004). Reference list accuracy in social work journals. Research on Social Work Practice, 14, 281-286.
60. SSWR Presidential Task Force on Publications. (2008). Journal publication practices in social work. Retrieved December 27, 2009, from http://www.sswr.org/PTFP%20final%20report%202008.pdf.
61. Thyer, B.A. (2005). A note from the editor: A comprehensive listing of social work journals. Research on Social Work Practice, 15, 310-311.
62. Vanclay, J.K. (2008). Ranking forestry journals using the h-index. Journal of Informetrics, 2, 326-334.
63. Walters, W.H. (2009). Google Scholar search performance: Comparative recall and precision. Portal: Libraries and the Academy, 9, 5-24.
64. Weinbach, R.W., & Grinnell, R.M. (1997). Statistics for social workers (4th ed.). New York, NY: Longman.
65. Whitehouse, G.H. (2001). Impact factors: Facts and myths. European Radiology, 12, 715-717.