A Comparative Analysis of the Application of H-index, G-index, and A-index in Institutional-Level Research Evaluation

Abstract

This study compared the application of h-index, g-index, and A-index in institutional level research evaluation. 99 universities in Taiwan were ranked by the three indices. Most of the universities had relatively low publication and citation numbers at the time of this study. The analysis focused on the range of equal values resulted from the three different indices, the range of disparity, the order or rank, and the degree of correlation among the indices. The results showed that g-index and h-index were similar in that the use of the two indices produced similar values and rankings. Both had the problem of equal value in which multiple universities got the same index value, making it difficult to differentiate the universities' performance. In contrast, A-index was able to rank the universities by emphasizing on the highly cited articles and at the same time avoided the problem of equal value. It was thus considered a better index for the institutional level research evaluation in Taiwan.