Tag: #Discover

Understanding H-Index

The H-index is a metric that measures an author’s productivity by the number of publications that have published their work and the impact of the work based on the number of citations their research receives. In general, authors with a higher h-index score will have produced more research and therefore published more content which, to their peers, creates their reputation of credibility.

This quantitative metric was brought about in 2005 by Argentinian-American professor of physics Jorge E. Hirsch to analyse publication data.

Finding an author’s H-index

There are multiple platforms on which you may find an author’s H-index score. To name a few, Google Scholar, Scopus, Web of science etc. However, in this blog, we’ll take you through the process of locating an author’s H-index on google scholar as shown below.

1. Visit Google Scholar
2. Enter the author’s name in the search bar
3. If a profile exists for the author, it will appear at the top of the search results, click the author’s name, and their profile page will open.
4. View their h-index on the right side of the screen.

Calculating H-Index Score

The H-index measures the importance, significance, and impact of research contributions. To calculate an author’s H-index, you’d need to create a list of all publications in which the author has been published and rank them in descending order of the citations his/her work has received. Understanding the H-index of an author is an indication of their credibility, so that brings us to the question:

What is a good H-index score?

J. E. Hirsch (2005) observes that Noble Prize winners in physics have an average H-index score of 30, this highlights that Noble prize winners are selected with a scientific body of research and a history of contributional impact. This proved that successful scientists do need a good h-index score.

Hirsch stated that after 20 years of research; an H-index score of 20 was good, 40 was outstanding and 60 was truly exceptional. 

Does the H-index score evaluate an author in all important aspects?

Undoubtedly, it is appealing to have a singular value that measures an author’s productivity and impact. Many committees have opted the H-index as their metric of choice as well. Bordons and Costas (2007) stated that the key advantage of the H-index metric is that it measures the scientific output of a researcher with objectivity. This plays a vital role in making decisions about promotions, fund allocation and awarding prizes.

However, there are suggestions that H-index does not take other important variables into account. According to Enago Academy (2022), a higher H-index score does not indicate better quality of research. The article further elaborates that the H-index score does not account for an author’s career stage, research and journal quality and contribution to the scientific community. The score also has potential unintended negative impacts; for example, a younger researcher may not challenge a researcher with a high h-index score and researchers aiming for a higher h-index may only pursue popular fields of science.

Furthermore, BiteSizeBio (2021) states that the H-index score does not take into account the number of authors on a research paper. If a paper has 1 author with about 100 citations, this researcher deserves more recognition than a paper that had 10 authors with similar citations. 

The fluctuation of the H-index score

The H-index score does not decrease unless the paper is redacted or deleted. Older papers may continue to gain new citations, and the h-index can potentially increase indefinitely, even after the researcher has stopped actively publishing. 

What is the difference between H-index and the journal impact factor?

The Journal Impact Factor metric is used to evaluate the importance of a journal within its respective field or discipline. In simpler terms, it measures the frequency of citations the average article within this journal receives. On the contrary, the H-index metric is used to measure the productivity and quality of an author’s publications. While they are both measures of research quality, they measure different aspects of research and can therefore not be compared.

To conclude, having a good H-index score is impressive. However, every author’s research contrasts with that of another. There are many more aspects to investigate when evaluating a researcher.

Discover millions of e-books, journal articles, proceedings and more on Zendy.

At Zendy, we aspire to make access and discovery of academic research more seamless. We’re excited to announce a suite of new features to the platform: reading lists, read history, and favourites. 

The process of academic research is often a complex cycle involving large volumes of reading, interpretation, re-reading, and then ultimately shaping a hypothesis. To simplify the cycle of reading and saving academic research, we’ve developed reading lists and a read history function to help students, researchers, and professionals organise research by project. You can also favourite key articles you want to read later while you search through journals and proceedings.

Create personalized reading lists

This reading list can be customized entirely by you! You get to arrange your articles, e-books, journals, and so much more, however you may like. You no longer have to search again for what you need; you can pick up right where you left off. Create your reading list tailored to your preferences.

Access your read history

Read something 2 weeks ago and didn’t add it to your reading list? We’ve got you covered because you can now access your read history! Your read history collates every piece of academic research that you have accessed on Zendy.

Favourite research articles while you search

Have you ever wanted to create a wish list but for research you come across? You can now do that with our latest favourites feature. You can essentially add articles to read either later or come back to. Quickly find all your favorite research and save time scrolling.

As signatories to the United Nations Sustainable Development Goals (SDGs) compact, this feature, along with a host of new platform enhancements, is aimed at simplifying the process of research. We’ve developed our online research library to promote greater inclusivity in the academic spectrum, with over 45 languages and millions of articles from researchers around the world. Explore our range of new tools and academic resources that are in line with our commitment to SDG-4, which is quality education. 

Use our reading list feature and discover new research now on Zendy.

Open access gives the public unrestricted online access to academic content found in scholarly publications. Over a third of all research articles are now published in Open Access (STM Association 2021). The increased adoption of Open Access in research fields comes as no surprise. Open Access creates value by streamlining the process of publishing for authors and enhancing readership by making more quality academic content available for free.

Open access publishing drives a wider conversation with scholars, policy makers, practitioners, clinicians, and the public to be able to read and circulate research. This dissemination of research can potentially improve current methods of practices and policies across a variety of fields and disciplines.

The surge in Open Access publishing and usage has created a movement with ardent support from social impact groups who are campaigning for open access to help bridge the gap of inequality that exists in academic publishing. Open access allows for greater inclusivity in scholarly communities. Open Access research means more people can make evidence-based decisions and continue learning with our barriers throughout their life. Learning should not stop when you finish school or complete your degree.

Benefits of Open Access

1. Increased readership: The ease of Open Access publishing means more people around the world can read the latest research for free. This helps build knowledge communities globally and supports lifelong learning.
2. Opportunity for citations: citations act as a roadmap in research. The more citations an article gets, the greater the chance for future research. Since Open Access is free and available globally, more people can cite the research
3. Transparency: Integrity is strengthened by the free availability of research. Especially if access is openly granted to this data. Thereby making said research more transparent.

If you’re a student, researcher, or professional, you can join the Open Access movement and access millions of journals, proceedings, articles, and more for free now. Here are 10 of the most popular Open Access library databases:

Zendy Open

Zendy is an online library that provides open access research worldwide. With over 43 million articles, journals, and e-books, Zendy is a publishing platform that offers a diverse selection of research across all major disciplines. From science to mathematics, technology, humanities, biology, physics, and more. What makes Zendy unique is that we help you make research easy. You can save lists based on your projects, favorite articles you want to read later, and even access your full reading history.

Research4Life

Research4Life equips institutions in low and middle-income countries with online access to academic peer-reviewed resources. This open access library specialises in teaching, research, and policymaking in health, agriculture, environment, and physical and social sciences.

DOAJ – Directory of Open Access Journals

DOAJ was launched in 2003 and started with 300 open access journals and has now grown to 18,000 journals. This publisher offers community-curated lists of open access material and holds together a variety of reputable researchers and content.

Google Scholar

Google Scholar is a freely accessible search engine that locates full text or metadata of scholarly literature in an array of fields and formats. Google Scholar offers peer-reviewed online academic journals and e-books, conference papers, dissertations, abstracts, technical reports, and other scholarly literature.

OAPEN

OAPEN is a non-profit organization that is based in the Netherlands. This open access library is a great source for open access academic research. Creating a platform for a diverse set of fields and disseminating the research within those fields, OAPEN is a very reliable publisher of peer-reviewed books.

ScienceOpen

ScienceOpen functions as a research and publishing network. Offering over 74 million articles in all areas of science, all you need to do to access full-text articles is register for free.

ResearchGate

Established in 2008, ResearchGate is a valuable platform that allows researchers to connect, collaborate and share their research with everyone. Most researchers on the platform specialize in medicine or biology however academic content on engineering, computer science, agriculture sciences, and psychology is also abundant.

OpenDOAR

OpenDOAR was launched in 2005; the platform is a collaboration between Lund University and the University of Nottingham. OpenDOAR serves as a global directory of open access repositories.

Social Science Research Network

The social science research network houses academic sources across all scientific disciplines. Dedicated to worldwide open access dissemination of research, SSRN is a great open access platform that works across a plethora of networks and disciplines.

arXiv e-Print Archive

arXiv is an open access archive for over 2 million scholarly articles in the fields of physics, mathematics, computer science, quantitative biology, electrical engineering, and economics. Publishing across these various disciplines, the network has well-rounded academic content that is posted after a series of moderation but is not peer-reviewed.

It’s a transformative time for Open Access. Together with leading global publishers, Zendy is committed to empowering discussions about how Open Access content can contribute to a more equitable future.

Discover millions of journals, proceedings, e-books, and more now on Zendy

Did you know you could copy article links by clicking on the paper clip icon next to the article title, as shown below?

This feature, which was only available for a few articles previously, has now been made available across all articles on Zendy! You can also share this copied link via email or on social media to let others (if they are also a Zendy user and the content is accessible in their country) easily access the link or save the link in a document for your own future use. Do note that due to this sitewide update, all links for articles that you may have previously copied are now redirecting to a new URL. 

How to retrieve the updated URL for the previously copied links?

One way is to copy the ISBN/ISSN in your old article URL and paste it in the search field in Zendy and then search using the ISBN/ISSN filter. To find the ISBN/ISSN, see the below sample URL in which it has been made bold:
https://app.zendy.io/title/isbn/9780231169042?id=XQAAAAIWAAAAAAAAAABBKIgm5XGa8Ww3flDPjRRS5dcCQbxwBEPm_nX_9ZewAA

After searching for the ISBN/ISSN on Zendy, the article title you had originally copied the link of should appear on the top in the search results. If the title doesn’t appear or you’re not able to decode the old URL for your title – then, no worries, just send us the old URL via our Contact us form and we will get back to you with the new URL. 😊 

Hope you find this new feature useful on your journey of discovery!

Zendy has a beautiful new look that went live in March – the month of reading! The vibrant new design reflects Zendy’s personality aptly and promises a smoother journey for the user.

As you may have noticed, Zendy’s new look revolves around a bee. What inspired us to go with the bee?

Bees have fascinated researchers for decades. They have excellent communication and social learning skills and are capable of incredibly complex behaviors. Pollinating bees are one of the vital reasons behind flourishing plant communities, agricultural production, carbon cycling, and many other essential services to our environment that we often fail to notice.

Similarly, Zendy’s purpose is to foster communication and encourage collaborative efforts among researchers and leaders worldwide. With more than 120,000 publications, Zendy is on track with its goal to pollinate the world with knowledge and become the ultimate digital library!

Sign up today and stay tuned for a dose of Zendy’s nectar of knowledge!

Based on user feedback, Zendy now displays author names next to the title for each article directly in the search result list.

In the expanded view, further details have also been added to enrich the records, including the DOI, author affiliations, subject categories, the journal ISSN, and more, depending on the available data.

For the search, you can now also limit your queries to several additional fields, like the journal title, ISSN or ISBN.

Today another feature has been released on Zendy to enable you to personalise your experience. Based on the input from beta-users on desired personalisation, the ability to save the own searches was given a high priority.

This means that you now can save any combinations of search terms and filters, and reuse those search criteria quickly and easily. Carry out your search, and simply click ‘Save search’. You can save as many searches as you like, and access the list of saved searches by clicking ‘View saved searches’.

We’d love to hear from you what you think about this feature. Feel free to reach out and share your thoughts with us!

All users can now easily export the reference for any of the items on Zendy in BibTeX format. This is the most commonly supported format by reference management tools like Mendeley, RefWorks and EndNote, and it is therefore very straightforward to add references from Zendy into essentially any reference management tool.

At the same time, we have also added the possibility to export references in the most common citation formats, including Harvard, Vancouver, APA 6th edition and MLA 7th edition. This serves to facilitate when creating reading and reference lists.

Both the export and citation capabilities were highly prioritized by the test users that are contributing to developing Zendy’s roadmap. Feel free to contact us and let us know what you think!