A bibliometric analysis of digestive health research in Canada: 'fair is foul, and foul is fair'.

摘要

In the current issue of The Canadian Journal of Gastroenterology, Tuitt et al (1) (pages 609-614) attempted to evaluate the impact and/or influence of Canadian researchers and their research groups using two measurement tools: the Hirsch factor or index (h-I), and their newly described Influence factor. They suggest that such metrics can provide information to funding agencies, presumably for the purpose of rank ordering, and to institutions to guide staffing and recruitment decisions. Their study focuses the spotlight on the relative merits of such bibliometric tools for assessing individual researchers and, at the same time, serves to demonstrate the dangers when such metrics are applied without scientific rigour.