DOI: 10.5530/jscires.2012.1.6
Published: September 2012
Type: Research Article
*aKHBO (Association KU Leuven), Faculty of Engineering Technology, Zeedijk 101, B-8400 Oostende, Belgium
bKU Leuven, Dept. Mathematics, Celestijnenlaan 200B, B-3000 Leuven (Heverlee), Belgium
cUniversiteit Antwerpen, IBW, Venusstraat 35, B-2000 Antwerpen, Belgium
dDept. Information Resources Management, Zhejiang University, Hangzhou 310027, China
eSchool of Information Management, Nanjing University, Nanjing 210093, China
Abstract:
Following the idea of the Bouyssou-Marchant independence axiom, a basic independence axiom for an indicator is introduced. It is shown that the average number of citations nor the h-index satisfy this basic axiom. Among the indicators considered here only the number of publications and the number of citations satisfy the requirements of this axiom. Weaker forms of the basic independence axiom are considered. The number of citations of the most-cited article satisfies these weaker forms. When studying the h-index the notion of an h-critical publication is introduced.