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Determining scientific impact using a collaboration index. (English) Zbl 1292.62147

Summary: Researchers collaborate on scientific projects that are often measured by both the quantity and the quality of the resultant peer-reviewed publications. However, not all collaborators contribute to these publications equally, making metrics such as the total number of publications and the \(H\)-index insufficient measurements of individual scientific impact. To remedy this, we use an axiomatic approach to assign relative credits to the coauthors of a given paper, referred to as the \(A\)-index for its axiomatic foundation. In this paper, we use the \(A\)-index to compute the weighted sums of peer-reviewed publications and journal impact factors, denoted as the \(C\)- and \(P\)-indexes for collaboration and productivity, respectively. We perform an in-depth analysis of bibliometric data for 186 biomedical engineering faculty members and from extensive simulation. It is found that these axiomatically weighted indexes better capture a researcher’s scientific caliber than do the total number of publications and the \(H\)-index, allowing for fairer and sharper evaluation of researchers with diverse collaborative behaviors.

MSC:

62P99 Applications of statistics
91D30 Social networks; opinion dynamics

Keywords:

bibliometrics
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References:

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