A simple centrality index for scientific social recognition
Abstract
We introduce a new centrality index for bipartite networks of papers and authors that we call K-index. The K-index grows with the citation performance of the papers that cite a given researcher and can be seen as a measure of scientific social recognition. Indeed, the K-index measures the number of hubs, defined in a self-consistent way in the bipartite network, that cites a given author. We show that the K-index can be computed by simple inspection of the Web of Science platform and presents several advantages over other centrality indexes, in particular Hirsch h-index. The K-index is robust to self-citations, is not limited by the total number of papers published by a researcher as occurs for the h-index and can distinguish in a consistent way researchers that have the same h-index but very different scientific social recognition. The K-index easily detects a known case of a researcher with inflated number of papers, citations and h-index due to scientific misconduct. Finally, we show that, in a sample of twenty-eight physics Nobel laureates and twenty-eight highly cited non-Nobel-laureate physicists, the K-index correlates better to the achievement of the prize than the number of papers, citations, citations per paper, citing articles or the h-index. Clustering researchers in a K versus h plot reveals interesting outliers that suggest that these two indexes can present complementary independent information.
- Publication:
-
Physica A Statistical Mechanics and its Applications
- Pub Date:
- February 2018
- DOI:
- 10.1016/j.physa.2017.08.072
- Bibcode:
- 2018PhyA..491..632K
- Keywords:
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- Scientometrics;
- Hirsch index;
- Lobby index;
- Complex networks;
- Node centrality;
- Citation network;
- Web of science;
- Social recognition;
- Scientific prizes