Different metrics claiming to measure research impact, such as the h-index, are receiving increasing prominence in grant and job applications. I have written before that I think they have some merit as a blunt instrument to filter applications, particularly for people at later career stages.
However, I am noticing an increasingly silly trend to cite a whole range of metrics, where I think one or two (probably the h-index and m-index=h-index/no. of years since Ph.D) would suffice. I have seen not just a paragraph, but a whole page! of analysis citing all sorts of metrics [e.g. comparing an authors citation rate for a particular journal to the impact journal factor, no's of papers with more than 50 citations, citation rate relative to others in the field, .... the list goes on and on...]. Don't people have better things to do with their time?
In the end it becomes like university rankings. Every university seems to cite the one in which they rank the highest.
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