A Survey of Impact and Citation Indices: Limitations and Issues

Abstract

Research projects can be evaluated through evaluating the research publications produced through those projects. Research publications are evaluation using impact factors and citation indices. There are several citation indices that are proposed and existed to assess the value of a research publication or the research impact of an author or a journal. In this paper, an extensive survey is conducted to evaluate the majority of the citation indices. Using examples, we demonstrated some of the limitations and problems with those indices. The evaluation showed that there is a need for more sensitive and comprehensive citation indices that can take into considerations all the factors that may impact a research publication or author. Survey also showed that the majority of citation indices heavily depend on the “H-core ” focus on most cited papers which exist in H-index and most successive indices.