A fairer way to compare researchers at any career stage and in any discipline using open-access citation data.
The pursuit of simple, yet fair, unbiased, and objective measures of researcher performance has occupied bibliometricians and the research community as a whole for decades. However, despite the diversity of available metrics, most are either complex to calculate or not readily applied in the most co...
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Public Library of Science (PLoS)
2021
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oai:doaj.org-article:f96947b3209f4924bf06a2c21eee0f072021-12-02T20:08:19ZA fairer way to compare researchers at any career stage and in any discipline using open-access citation data.1932-620310.1371/journal.pone.0257141https://doaj.org/article/f96947b3209f4924bf06a2c21eee0f072021-01-01T00:00:00Zhttps://doi.org/10.1371/journal.pone.0257141https://doaj.org/toc/1932-6203The pursuit of simple, yet fair, unbiased, and objective measures of researcher performance has occupied bibliometricians and the research community as a whole for decades. However, despite the diversity of available metrics, most are either complex to calculate or not readily applied in the most common assessment exercises (e.g., grant assessment, job applications). The ubiquity of metrics like the h-index (h papers with at least h citations) and its time-corrected variant, the m-quotient (h-index ÷ number of years publishing) therefore reflect the ease of use rather than their capacity to differentiate researchers fairly among disciplines, career stage, or gender. We address this problem here by defining an easily calculated index based on publicly available citation data (Google Scholar) that corrects for most biases and allows assessors to compare researchers at any stage of their career and from any discipline on the same scale. Our ε'-index violates fewer statistical assumptions relative to other metrics when comparing groups of researchers, and can be easily modified to remove inherent gender biases in citation data. We demonstrate the utility of the ε'-index using a sample of 480 researchers with Google Scholar profiles, stratified evenly into eight disciplines (archaeology, chemistry, ecology, evolution and development, geology, microbiology, ophthalmology, palaeontology), three career stages (early, mid-, late-career), and two genders. We advocate the use of the ε'-index whenever assessors must compare research performance among researchers of different backgrounds, but emphasize that no single index should be used exclusively to rank researcher capability.Corey J A BradshawJustin M ChalkerStefani A CrabtreeBart A EijkelkampJohn A LongJustine R SmithKate TrinajsticVera WeisbeckerPublic Library of Science (PLoS)articleMedicineRScienceQENPLoS ONE, Vol 16, Iss 9, p e0257141 (2021) |
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Medicine R Science Q |
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Medicine R Science Q Corey J A Bradshaw Justin M Chalker Stefani A Crabtree Bart A Eijkelkamp John A Long Justine R Smith Kate Trinajstic Vera Weisbecker A fairer way to compare researchers at any career stage and in any discipline using open-access citation data. |
| description |
The pursuit of simple, yet fair, unbiased, and objective measures of researcher performance has occupied bibliometricians and the research community as a whole for decades. However, despite the diversity of available metrics, most are either complex to calculate or not readily applied in the most common assessment exercises (e.g., grant assessment, job applications). The ubiquity of metrics like the h-index (h papers with at least h citations) and its time-corrected variant, the m-quotient (h-index ÷ number of years publishing) therefore reflect the ease of use rather than their capacity to differentiate researchers fairly among disciplines, career stage, or gender. We address this problem here by defining an easily calculated index based on publicly available citation data (Google Scholar) that corrects for most biases and allows assessors to compare researchers at any stage of their career and from any discipline on the same scale. Our ε'-index violates fewer statistical assumptions relative to other metrics when comparing groups of researchers, and can be easily modified to remove inherent gender biases in citation data. We demonstrate the utility of the ε'-index using a sample of 480 researchers with Google Scholar profiles, stratified evenly into eight disciplines (archaeology, chemistry, ecology, evolution and development, geology, microbiology, ophthalmology, palaeontology), three career stages (early, mid-, late-career), and two genders. We advocate the use of the ε'-index whenever assessors must compare research performance among researchers of different backgrounds, but emphasize that no single index should be used exclusively to rank researcher capability. |
| format |
article |
| author |
Corey J A Bradshaw Justin M Chalker Stefani A Crabtree Bart A Eijkelkamp John A Long Justine R Smith Kate Trinajstic Vera Weisbecker |
| author_facet |
Corey J A Bradshaw Justin M Chalker Stefani A Crabtree Bart A Eijkelkamp John A Long Justine R Smith Kate Trinajstic Vera Weisbecker |
| author_sort |
Corey J A Bradshaw |
| title |
A fairer way to compare researchers at any career stage and in any discipline using open-access citation data. |
| title_short |
A fairer way to compare researchers at any career stage and in any discipline using open-access citation data. |
| title_full |
A fairer way to compare researchers at any career stage and in any discipline using open-access citation data. |
| title_fullStr |
A fairer way to compare researchers at any career stage and in any discipline using open-access citation data. |
| title_full_unstemmed |
A fairer way to compare researchers at any career stage and in any discipline using open-access citation data. |
| title_sort |
fairer way to compare researchers at any career stage and in any discipline using open-access citation data. |
| publisher |
Public Library of Science (PLoS) |
| publishDate |
2021 |
| url |
https://doaj.org/article/f96947b3209f4924bf06a2c21eee0f07 |
| work_keys_str_mv |
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1718375218697732096 |