New Metric Challenges Traditional Academic Impact Measurements
A recently launched browser extension is reportedly transforming how academic impact is calculated by accounting for author position in research publications, according to reports. The tool, called GScholarLens, introduces a weighted version of the traditional h-index that gives different credit to authors based on their position in author lists.
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How the Weighted Scholar h-index Works
Sources indicate that the GScholarLens tool calculates what it calls the Scholar h-index (Sh-index) by applying specific weightings to citation counts based on authorship position. According to the tool’s creators, last or corresponding authors receive 100% of their paper’s citations toward their Sh-index, while first authors get 90% credit.
The report states that second authors receive 50% weighting, while other co-authors get either 25% (for papers with six or fewer authors) or 10% (for papers with seven or more authors). These weightings are based on a preprint published by the tool’s developers in September.
Rationale Behind Author Position Weighting
GScholarLens co-creator Gaurav Sharma, a computational biologist at the Indian Institute of Technology Hyderabad, explains that the highest weighting goes to first and last authors because, according to reports, these positions typically represent the researchers who contributed most substantially to the paper. Analysts suggest this approach could help address longstanding concerns about fair credit distribution in academic publishing.
“The Sh-index was designed to help researchers, institutions and policymakers to create fairer and more-comprehensive evaluation systems that capture the nuance of authorship,” Sharma stated, according to the report. He added that the weightings might be adjusted in the future based on user feedback.
Potential Benefits and Applications
The new metric could reportedly provide a more accurate picture of a researcher’s contributions, especially in cases where someone has a high traditional h-index due to being a co-author on highly cited papers but has limited first or last authorship. Sources indicate this could help identify researchers whose contributions are primarily collaborative rather than leadership-oriented., according to industry developments
Additionally, analysts suggest that a high h-index combined with a low Sh-index might help flag potential ethical issues, such as gift or paid authorship arrangements where researchers receive authorship credit without substantial contribution to the work.
Academic Credit Distribution Challenges
The development comes amid ongoing concerns about fair credit allocation in academic research. According to a 2022 survey of approximately 47,000 European researchers cited in the report, nearly 70% stated they had worked on projects where some authors didn’t contribute enough to deserve authorship credit.
Expert Perspectives and Limitations
Alberto Martín-Martín, an information scientist at the University of Granada in Spain, expressed sympathy with GScholarLens’s goals but raised concerns about its methodology. He suggested, according to reports, that simply assigning different weights to author positions might not adequately capture contribution nuances because authorship positions themselves don’t perfectly represent actual contributions.
Martín-Martín also noted that the tool appears to assume corresponding authors are always last in author lists, which reportedly isn’t always the case. He recommended using open data sources like OpenAlex for such tools to enable more comprehensive analyses across fields, journals, and demographic factors.
Positive Reception and Future Potential
Despite limitations, early reactions from some academics have been positive. Michael Gusenbauer, who studies innovation management at Johannes Kepler University Linz in Austria, stated that “the positives outweigh the negatives” when it comes to having tools that expand on basic Google Scholar statistics.
The free GScholarLens plugin is currently available for Chrome and Firefox browsers. In addition to calculating the Sh-index, the tool reportedly shows the number of retracted papers and preprints associated with an author’s profile, providing additional context for research evaluation.
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References
- https://project.iith.ac.in/sharmaglab/gscholarlens/
- https://chromewebstore.google.com/detail/google-scholar-button/ldipcbpaocekfo…
- https://addons.mozilla.org/en-US/firefox/addon/gscholarlens/
- http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/H-index
- http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Google_Scholar
- http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Browser_extension
- http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Google_Chrome
- http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Web_browser
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