Effect of Self-Citation on H-Index: A Study of Top 1% Highly Cited Iranian Scientists in Medical Sciences
Journal of Otorhinolaryngology and Facial Plastic Surgery,
Vol. 8 No. 1 (2022),
25 January 2022
,
Page 1-9
https://doi.org/10.22037/orlfps.v8i1.38243
Abstract
Background: H-index is one of the main bibliometric indicators for evaluating researchers. It has been criticized due to the effect of self-citation rate on its increase.
Aim: This study aimed at analyzing the state of top 1% highly-cited Iranian scientists in medical sciences in ESI for investigating the effect of their self-citations on their h-indices.
Methods: Iranian Medical Science Scientometric Information Database, Essential Science IndicatorsTM (ESI) and Scopus indexing/abstracting database were used for data extraction. Data analysis was conducted in Excel and SPSS..
Results: In total, 6.15% of citations were self-citations that resulted in increase in h-index by 2.49 units. After excluding self-citations, the h-indexes of 23.4% of the studied scientists did not change and the mean rate of h-index decreased by 2.49. A correlational test showed the strong correlation between self-citation count and h-index rate (r=.718).
Conclusion: Self-citation is present as a common phenomenon in all scientific communities and increases in h-index. If not used for manipulating bibliometric indicators, it can make the scientific works more visible for potential readers and consequently receiving more citations.
- H-index; Self-citation; Medical Science Iran; Top 1% highly-cited scientists.
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References
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