{"id":773,"date":"2014-02-03T14:02:48","date_gmt":"2014-02-03T12:02:48","guid":{"rendered":"http:\/\/blogs.uab.cat\/saramartinalegre\/?p=773"},"modified":"2014-02-03T14:02:48","modified_gmt":"2014-02-03T12:02:48","slug":"my-google-scholars-profile-sobering-up-but-what-else-can-i-do","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/webs.uab.cat\/saramartinalegre\/2014\/02\/03\/my-google-scholars-profile-sobering-up-but-what-else-can-i-do\/","title":{"rendered":"MY GOOGLE SCHOLAR\u2019S PROFILE: SOBERING UP (BUT WHAT ELSE CAN I DO?) <\/strong>"},"content":{"rendered":"

I recently came across some online form asking for my h-index. The same site explained about the need to open a Google Scholars account, so I opened one and found that my h-index was 0. I\u2019m so stupid I didn\u2019t realise I should have to enter my publications manually one by one for Google to calculate my actual h-index. I have done so this morning (pre-storm\u2026 the second semester begins next week), so now I know that after 89 publications (books, chapters in books, articles in journals) and 19 years my h-index is 5 (4 since 2009), and that two of my publications are i10-index (meaning they have been cited more than 10 times). I have been cited a grand total of 45 times (24 since 2009).<\/p>\n

Jorge E. Hirsch, a physicist, came up in 2005 with the (insert adjective here\u2026) formula to calculate the now ubiquitous h-index: \u201cA scientist has index h if h of his\/her Np papers have at least h citations each, and the other (Np \u2212 h) papers have no more than h citations each.\u201d In other words: the scientist with the highest h-index (1983-2002), Solomon H. Snyder, had 191 papers cited at least 191 times each, ranking h-191. My 5, as you can see, is modest to the point of embarrassment. I have decided, nonetheless, to go ahead and make my profile public. My rationale is that I have nothing to hide and if my career is mediocrity itself, then this is it. I\u2019m so happy not to be an h-0 scholar than the rest doesn\u2019t matter. And I’ve read that Einstein\u2019s career would have only amounted to an h-4\u2026<\/p>\n

I agree with critics of the h-index that a) it\u2019s too closely related to the scholar\u2019s age (the older you are, the higher it can\/should be); b) it works poorly for the Humanities; c) it\u2019s been given undue importance. I\u2019ll take it, then, with a pinch of salt. I recommend you, in any case, to open a Google Scholars account, check on your h-index, keep a stiff upper lip and move on. I\u2019m going to do that. Deep sigh\u2026<\/p>\n

Something that has made me very happy is that my two books, Monstruos al Final del Milenio<\/em> (2002) and Expediente X: En Honor a la Verdad<\/em> (2006) are among my most cited works (the former is one of my two i10-index). Happy indeed because when I decided to publish them with a non-academic press I made a complicated decision, based on the idea that I wanted to bridge the gap between academic and non-academic audiences. It seems I did so more or less well, so task accomplished!! What I never expected is that my other i10-index is \u201cGothic Scholars don\u2019t Wear Black: Gothic Studies and Gothic Subcultures\u201d, an article I published in Gothic Studies<\/em> (2002) in which I considered the problematic fit between these two Gothic-related fields. This is quite a surprise, particularly as I considered it quite an eccentric piece. <\/p>\n

The rest tells me that whoever has quoted me, has paid more attention to the international publications, whether online or not. If I go by my h-index, publishing in Spanish collective books is no use at all for the dissemination of your work, something that I\u2019m trying to correct in my personal case by using my website and my university\u2019s repository to upload all I am allowed to upload. Logically, this means that a great deal of what I regard as my best productions are buried in books and journals nobody will ever read (this includes international journals, too).<\/p>\n

I\u2019m turning next to Academia.edu, as one of my younger colleagues has convinced me that this is the way to go. I feel increasingly that I should hire a personal community manager… Just think about this, next time I publish something I\u2019ll have to index that item in: my personal CV, the UAB\u2019s CV application (Ein@), my web, Google Scholar, Academia.edu and whatever else I do next (I\u2019ve just been told about Research Gate). No, I don\u2019t have a Twitter account yet. No, I\u2019m not on Facebook, nor LinkedIn.<\/p>\n

We are producing a strange academic culture which combines a very narcissistic approach (what I do matters!!!) with a harsh bibliometric approach which seems designed to demoralise even very senior scholars. An approach, that, besides, does not take into account the actual conditions of humanistic production (I\u2019m NOT a scientist!!!), and the particular geographical areas where this is produced. Reputation used to be measured exactly by that, by reputation. Those days are gone and I wonder what else will be introduced next in this huxleyan academic world of ours, increasingly divided into alphas, betas… and, us, deltas.<\/p>\n

Some soma, please…<\/p>\n

Comments are very welcome! (Thanks!) Just remember that I check them first for spam; it might take a few days for yours to be available. VISIT MY WEB: http:\/\/gent.uab.cat\/saramartinalegre<\/a>\/<\/em><\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"

I recently came across some online form asking for my h-index. The same site explained about the need to open a Google Scholars account, so I opened one and found that my h-index was 0. I\u2019m so stupid I didn\u2019t realise I should have to enter my publications manually one by one for Google to […]<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":98,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[1],"tags":[408],"class_list":["post-773","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","hentry","category-sin-categoria","tag-research"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/webs.uab.cat\/saramartinalegre\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/773","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/webs.uab.cat\/saramartinalegre\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/webs.uab.cat\/saramartinalegre\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/webs.uab.cat\/saramartinalegre\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/98"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/webs.uab.cat\/saramartinalegre\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=773"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/webs.uab.cat\/saramartinalegre\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/773\/revisions"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/webs.uab.cat\/saramartinalegre\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=773"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/webs.uab.cat\/saramartinalegre\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=773"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/webs.uab.cat\/saramartinalegre\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=773"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}