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Four subjects, ecology, applied mathematics, sociology and economics, were selected to assess whether there is a citation advantage between journal articles that have an open access (OA) version on the Internet compared to those articles that are exclusively toll access (TA). Citations were counted using the Web of Science and the OA status of articles was determined by searching OAIster, OpenDOAR, Google and Google Scholar. Of a sample of 4633 articles examined, 2280 (49%) were OA and had a mean citation count of 9.04, whereas the mean for TA articles was 5.76. There appears to be a clear citation advantage for those articles that are OA as opposed to those that are TA. This advantage, however, varies between disciplines, with sociology having the highest citation advantage but the lowest number of OA articles from the sample taken and ecology having the highest individual citation count for OA articles but the smallest citation advantage. Tests of correlation or association between OA status and a number of variables were generally found to be weak or inconsistent. The cause of this citation advantage has not been determined.

A citation study of the 692 staff that makes up unit of assessment 58 (archaeology) IntroductionIn this paper, we describe research on the correlation between citation counts and an of®cial 2001 assessment of research excellence in UK university archaeology departments. To assess the research performance of UK universities, the UK Higher Education Funding Councils carry out a periodic Research Assessment Exercise (RAE). The RAE is concerned with making a qualitative judgement of the research output of those university departments who submit themselves to the procedure. As part of this assessment, academic (and in some cases industrial) peers carry out a review of the published work of submitting departments over a given period of time. The departments are also assessed by other criteria, including the number of higher degree students they have, the amount of research income they have received and a general commentary on their current and future research programmes. University departments are then ranked and consequently funded by central government for their research activities, based upon the score they achieve.The RAE is carried out every ®ve years or so and is viewed by many as an expensive and contentious process. Alternatives are sometimes suggested that

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PurposeThis review aims to show, broadly, how the h‐index has become a subject of widespread debate, how it has spawned many variants and diverse applications since first introduced in 2005 and some of the issues in its use.Design/methodology/approachThe review drew on a range of material published in 1990 or so sources published since 2005. From these sources, a number of themes were identified and discussed ranging from the h‐index's advantages to which citation database might be selected for its calculation.FindingsThe analysis shows how the h‐index has quickly established itself as a major subject of interest in the field of bibliometrics. Study of the index ranges from its mathematical underpinning to a range of variants perceived to address the indexes' shortcomings. The review illustrates how widely the index has been applied but also how care must be taken in its application.Originality/valueThe use of bibliometric indicators to measure research performance continues, with the h‐index as its latest addition. The use of the h‐index, its variants and many applications to which it has been put are still at the exploratory stage. The review shows the breadth and diversity of this research and the need to verify the veracity of the h‐index by more studies.