The “h-index” was proposed by physicist Jorge Hirsch in his article “An index to quantify an individual’s scientific research output“ (PNAS November 15, 2005 vol. 102 no. 46) and is sometimes called the Hirsch index or Hirsch number.

According to Wikipedia:

"The h-index is an index that attempts to measure both the scientific productivity and the apparent scientific impact of a scientist. 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 people's publications. The index can also be applied to the productivity and impact of a group of scientists, such as a department or university or country."

The h-index is calculated by taking into account the balance between the number of publications and the number of citations per publication. For example, a h-index of 26 tells us that an author has 26 publications which received 26 citations or more.



To calculate your h-index using Web of Science follow these simple steps:

1. Select Web of Science from the NCSU Libraries’ DATABASES list
2. Enter your name in the author search box (e.g. Davis RF)
3. To ensure accuracy also enter your institution’s name (for NCSU enter N Carolina State Univ, then select “address” from the field drop down menu on the right
4. Click search
5. Click “Create Citation Report” on the upper right hand corner of the results page – the h-index is provided along with the number of articles found, the Sum of the Times Cited, the Average Citations per Item, and bar graphs of papers per year and citations per year.

Here is a sample result for an illustrious NCSU professor:

ISI has launched their new Web of Knowledge interface, so Web of Science looks a little different.



The Web of Science Tips we've presented in this blog still apply! One thing to note: ISI is making an effort to better integrate all of their databases (including BIOSIS Previews, Zoological Record, Journal Citation Reports) into one search. That might be useful to you, depending on your research needs, but it does have the drawback of limiting the available database features. Make sure you're working strictly within Web of Science by looking at the tabs along the top of the screen. If you see the Web of Science tab and it's selected (white), you're set. Otherwise, click the Select a Database tab to choose it.



Let us know if you have problems applying the tips in the new interface, or any other questions you have about Web of Science.

This is the fifth tip of the Web of Science Tips series. Previous tips:

1. Searching for common author names.
2. Using the Analyze tool.
3. Saving your searches.
4. Basic citation tracking.

Tip #5: Creating Citation Alerts

Most modern databases have a function for monitoring papers and topics automatically, so that once you've found some information of interest, you don't have to conduct the same searches over and over again. This function also relieves you of the chore of manually checking the database for new publications. Instead, whenever something new is available that matches the information you want, you can get notification via e-mail. Most databases call these 'alerts' (or some variation, like 'citation alerts' or 'search alerts'). (Note that the NCSU Libraries recently rolled out our own My Alerts service to notify you of the contents of new issues of journals.)

There are actually two different styles of alerts you can create in Web of Science. Let's talk about the two separately.

1. Citation Alerts

Citation alerts are designed to notify you whenever a paper of interest is cited. This could be a really interesting paper, a paper highly relevant to your research, or even your own work! If you create a citation alert, you will receive an automated e-mail whenever a new paper appears that cites it.

While viewing the full record of the paper you want to be alerted about (click on the title of the paper in your search results list), notice the options presented on the right side of the screen:



Click the Create Citation Alert button to set up the alert, then on the subsequent screen confirm by clicking Done. Note that you will need to set up an account to use this feature. In this librarian's opinion, the registration requirements for research databases like Web of Science are reasonable, lightweight, and considerate of online privacy. Only an e-mail address and password are required.

You'll now receive an automated e-mail message every time a new article citing this one appears in the database.

2. Search Alerts

You can also create search alerts to notify you when new papers match a search you've conducted. You've already taken the time to craft a search, but you'll want to know if new articles appear that would be of interest. Why come back next month and do the same search? If you create an alert, the database can automatically notify you if new relevant articles are available.

We discussed saving your search history a few tips ago. Notice now that when you save your search history, you have the option to create an e-mail alert:



Check the box when saving to create the alert. If you wish, change the type, format, and frequency options (it's easy to change later if you change your mind about any of the settings). Click Save when you're done.

Modifying alerts

If you want to modify any of your alerts or saved histories later, use the green navigation bar along the top of the Web of Science screen:



From those screens, you can modify or delete anything you've saved so far.

This is the fourth tip of the Web of Science Tips series. The first tip covered searching for common author names. The second tip demonstrates how to use the Analyze tool. The third tip discusses how to save your searches.

Tip #4: Basic Citation Tracking

One of the major strengths of the Web of Science database is its ability to track article citations both backwards (to find cited articles) AND forwards (to find citing articles). Many database providers are developing this feature, but at present Web of Science is still the first place to look for citation data. This is a good time to point out that Web of Science is also known as Science Citation Index Expanded. In fact, the database itself is still know as Science Citation Index Expanded, only nowadays it's available within the larger product called Web of Science. In conversation, the two are often used interchangeably.

Notice that after you conduct a search, among the standard information presented is the number of times each article has been cited:



By default, results are sorted by publication date, but in this view I have sorted the results by number of Times Cited. You can do this by using the drop-down menu in the options on the right:



Sorting in this manner gives you a quick and effective way to see important papers on your search topic, since the most frequently-cited will appear first. In this example, I've searched for one author, and can now see which of this person's papers have been most often cited.

Now click on one of the records to see details about its citations:



Web of Science provides a way to quickly link to both the papers cited by this article, and in turn, those that have cited it. Researches like this feature because they can find related work and identify key papers. For authors, this is even a common method of vanity searching! There's often need to see how frequently your work is cited.

Disclaimer! Web of Science is a massive database, but it's not comprehensive. If articles from the Journal of Important Studies aren't indexed in the database, then citation data from the Journal of Important Studies isn't going to be available either. As other databases better integrate their citation tracking features, researchers whose work isn't well-represented in Web of Science will have better alternative options for this type of searching.

This is the third tip of the Web of Science Tips series. The first tip, if you missed it, was on searching for common author names. The second tip demonstrates how to use the Analyze tool.

Tip #3: How to save your work:

After conducting searches, most of your options for saving your progress are located on the right side of the screen:



You can print or e-mail any records you've selected. Use these options to print out citations so you can find them later, or e-mail them to your office or to a colleague. This is a good strategy for quick, one-time searches.

A more powerful option for longer research tasks is to use the Marked List. Try selecting a few records, then click on the 'Add to Marked List' button.



This is a way of bookmarking records as you progress through all search results. All the records you select and add to the Marked List are temporarily saved. Notice that a new Marked List access button appears along the top of the page. Clicking there allows you to print or e-mail all the citations on your Marked List at once.

What about the 'Export to Reference Software' option? This is a very useful way to export your research from Web of Science, but a separate topic. We'll discuss it in a future tip.

You can also save your search history, so you don't have to re-do all of your searches the next time you visit Web of Science. Click on the Search History button along the top of the screen. You'll go to a new area that looks like this:



Use the Save History buttons to save your searches, or retrieve an older list. You can create a free account with Web of Science that permits you to save your search history on their server for access later, from anywhere.

Notice that this is also a visual way of combining all the searches you've done. Check off the search terms you want to combine and use the Combine button.