Evaluating individual scientific output normalized to publication age and academic field through the Scientometrics.org project

Abstract

When evaluating the publication performance of a scientist one has to consider not only the difference in publication norms in different scientific fields, but also the length of the academic career of the investigated researcher. Here, our goal was to establish a database suitable as a reference for the ranking of scientific performance by normalizing the researchers output to those with the same academic career length and active in same scientific field. By using the complete publication and citation data of 17,072 Hungarian researchers, we established a framework enabling the quick assessment of a researcher’s scientific output by comparing four parameters (h-index, yearly independent citations received, number of publications, and number of high impact publications), to the age-matched values of all other researchers active in the same scientific discipline. The established online tool available at www.scientometrics.org could be an invaluable help for faster and more evidence-based grant review processes.