Hirsch-Type Index Values for Organic Chemistry Journals: A Comparison of New Metrics with the Journal Impact Factor

In August 2005, Jorge Hirsch introduced with the h index a new research performance indicator. His index is an original and simple new measure that incorporates both quantity and visibility of publications. Since 2005, a number of corrections and complementary indices to the h index as well as single-number alternatives have already been put forward. We examine in the present study the h index and the most important h index variants that have been proposed and discussed in the literature. The aim of the analysis is to determine empirically the extent to which the usage of the h index and its variants for measuring the performance of journals results in an incremental contribution against the Journal Impact Factor (JIF). JIF, h index, and different variants of the h index were calculated for 20 organic chemistry journals. As the findings reveal high intercorrelations, the different performance measures could be called redundant in empirical application. ((C) Wiley-VCH Verlag GmbH & Co. KGaA, 69451 Weinheim, Germany, 2009)