A citation-based, author- and age-normalized, logarithmic index for evaluation of individual researchers independently of publication counts
Related Experiment Video
Updated: Jan 18, 2026

Comparing Bibliometric Analysis Using PubMed, Scopus, and Web of Science Databases
Published on: October 24, 2019
Aleksey V Belikov1, Vitaly V Belikov2
1Otto-von-Guericke-Universität, Magdeburg, Germany.
Abstract:
The use of citation metrics for evaluation of individual researchers has dramatically increased over the last decade. However, currently existing indices either are based on misleading premises or are cumbersome to implement. This leads to poor assessment of researchers and creates dangerous trends in science, such as overproduction of low quality articles. Here we propose an index (namely, the L-index) that does not depend on the number of publications, accounts for different co-author contributions and age of publications, and scales from 0.0 to 9.9. Moreover, it can be calculated with the help of freely available software.
Related Concept Videos
Chi-square Analysis
The chi-square test was developed by Pearson in 1990.
The first step of performing a Chi-square analysis is to establish a null hypothesis, which assumes that there is no real...
Statistical Analysis: Overview
One of the most commonly used statistical quantifiers is the mean, which is the ratio between the sum of the numerical values of all results and the...
Calculating and Interpreting the Linear Correlation Coefficient
Population Growth
Outliers and Influential Points
Sample Size Calculation
The sample size for the given experiment or sampling effort is fundamental to any study design. Sample size decides the number of...

