"The h-index is an index that attempts to measure both the productivity and impact of the published work of a scientist or scholar. The index is based on the set of the scientist's most cited papers and the number of citations that they have received in other publications".-  from Wikipedia

It seeks to measure a researcher's  Influence by combining their research output with the citation count.

More information:

• Excellent Wikpedia entry
• Hirsch's original article

The three most common tools used to calculate the H-index are:

• Web of Science (ISI)
• Scopus
• Publish or Perish (using GoogleScholar data)

The boxes below provide specific instructions for each of these.

Why do they each result in a different  value?

The three tools often calculate very different H-values. The reasons are that each database source has a somewhat different coverage of source journals. Researchers will find that one source (e.g. Web of Science) may only cover  a small proportion of their total publication output. This varies from person to person and especially across disciplines.

There are many other factors at play with database coverage variation and disciplinary differences. The Wikipedia discussion is highly recommended for further information on problems and cautions in calculating H.

Connect to Web of Science

When you get to the main search screen:

1. Click the Author Finder option (instead of the default Search screen)
2. Enter a surname and first initial in the labelled boxes
3. Press Search
4. You will see your results in one or more sets sets. Check all boxes that are the correct person
5. Click View Records button at top or bottom of screen
6. Click “Create citation report”  link to see citation stats including H-index

Connect to Scopus

When you get to the main Scopus search screen:

1. Click the Author Search tab (instead of the default Document search)
2. Enter surname and first initial in the labelled boxes
3. Enter University of the Sunshine Coast  into the Affiliation box
4. Press Search
5. You will see your results in 2 sets. Check both boxes
6. You can view all documents from the link below and it will give citations for each document
7. OR you can “View citation overview”  to see your citation stats and link to the  H-index graph

Open the Publish-or-Perish  program

• Note: This is an installed program but installation does not require Administrator privileges.
• Download site for Windows here: http://www.harzing.com/pop_win.htm
• Download site for Mac OSX here: http://www.harzing.com/pop_osx.htm

To calculate H-indexes and other metrics for a researcher:

• Highlight Author tab at top of screen
• Enter the author: surname, initials in the  search box
• Uncheck discipline boxes that do not apply at right
• Click "Lookup" button
• PoP will calculate various metrics and display them and list all relevant publications in descending order of citation count in lower pane
• If false hits are found (article does not actually belong to that author) you can uncheck the box next to the article and the metrics will recalculate to match checked boxes only