On Fri, 08 Feb 2008 13:45:58 -0800, Patrick Dolan wrote: >Hmm sounds like the h-index that Web of Science will generate for >any given author (search on an author and select "create citation report" >and it generates all sorts of data on how often you're cited, including this >h-index). Roddy Roediger wrote about it in one of his presidential >columns in the APS Observer > http://www.psychologicalscience.org/observer/getArticle.cfm?id=1971 >(not sure that link will work for everybody).
Actually, I believe that what Roediger describes is what was called the "Hirsh Index" in the spam while the PIF seems to be simply the total number of citations divided by the number of articles (at least that's the impression I get from the Mt. Sinai instructions). The value of the PIF and the h/H indices are likely to differ because as Roediger points outs the h/H indices are like the mode in that they rely upon a single central value but the PIF is like the mean number of citations per article (which will be affected by one or a few articles with high citations). >Anyway, it was all the rage among several of my colleagues- I've >seen people spend over an hour looking up their friends, colleagues, >job candidates, etc. Gee, I wonder what Tipsters are likely to do this weekend? ;-) >It is definitely ego stroking (or crushing) but I have to admit the >citation reports are full of interesting data. But as Roediger points out, one has to be very cautious in interpreting any citation measure especially if it is based only on the information provided in ISI databases. Roediger points out the problem associated with books and book chapters but fails to realize that some people might publish a book or chapter that gets a lot of citations outside of psychology and the biomedical scienes which the ISI database focuses on (one such topic is bilingualism which has become a hot topic in recent years in psychology but some folks have done work in it for quite a while and have an influence in other areas, such as the education literature). Plus, there is another way of looking at the influence of book: how many college libraries own a copy? One can probably break this down according to Research Universities and Liberal Arts colleges but a simple measure would be how many of the top university libraries own a copy of a book. And, of course, there are personal reasons why I'm making such an argument. :-) >(and assuming there is only one M Palij, Mike has a very >respectable h-index of 12 :) There's only one M Palij in psychology (there was one at the University of Kansas but he was a historian who was interested in anarchism in Ukraine; he does show up in the ISI database if one includes the social science articles) . However, I like the mean citations per article number (if that is what PIF really is) because it is much larger. ;-) -Mike Palij New York University [EMAIL PROTECTED] P.S. To Chris G., I thought that's what clinical psychologists were for. :-) :-) :-) :-) :-) <- Really, I'm just kidding!!! --- To make changes to your subscription contact: Bill Southerly ([EMAIL PROTECTED])
