Using the H-index to Measure Czech Economic Research and Czech Researchers’ Habits Related to Research Papers T. Cahlík, H. Pessrová

We apologize for the change in the name of our presentation. The cause is that the structure of the survey results we got from the LSE at the end of October was slightly different than we had expected.

Outline n H-index u Our suggestion for Czech economic researcher evaluation n Versions Project – Survey Results u Conclusions from the survey results

H-index n Turnovec and Münich Ratings n Simple web script to calculate the h-index from “Google Scholar” at n Using that script, we have calculated h-indexes for both Turnovec and Münich lists of the “Top 50 Czech Economists”

H-index – Turnovec rating table

H-index – Münich rating table

H-index n Identified problems with the script: common names and interdisciplinary researchers n Simple statistical analysis allows a conclusion that the h-index obtained by the available script is a good and low-cost approximation of Czech economic researcher performance

H-index n Suggestion u economic researchers with a h-index higher than 3 are “excellent” in the Czech context u economic researchers with a h-index from 1 to 3 are “economic researchers” u others are not considered by the standards of the contemporary international research community to be economic researchers, taking into account that Google Scholars is a basic search tool for contemporary research and that a h-index of 1 requires having only one paper cited once

Versions Project and Survey Results n Nereus Consortium and Versions Project – involvement of CERGE-EI and the Czech Economic Society

Versions Project and Survey Results n The involvement of authors of this paper was motivated by: u The potential possibility of comparison of some habits of Czech economic researchers with the rest of the world. u Our hope that Czech economic researchers may get the possibility to take part in future surveys on different topics. That of course would open the possibility of further Czech-world comparisons as low- cost by-products of the main results of such surveys.

Versions Project and Survey Results n In Total, there were 464 academic researcher respondents, including 21 from the Czech Republic. If we compare Czech participation with other countries, only 6 countries had more participants: the United Kingdom had 80, the USA 57, Germany 49, Austria 32, France 28 and Italy 25

Versions Project and Survey Results n The structure of respondents from the Czech Republic is pretty similar to the Total structure. The share of professors and lecturers in both samples approaches 60%. Most respondents in both samples have been engaged in research for more than 5 years

Versions Project and Survey Results n Both Czech and Total typical respondents are active researchers, with papers intended for publication in refereed academic journals in the past two years. The share of respondents with engagement in more subject disciplines is higher in the Czech Republic (24%) than in Total (16%)

Versions Project and Survey Results n Concerning the research output: Economic researchers in Total are very active in disseminating research results through different research outputs. They typically produce more than four different types of research output from a research project

Versions Project and Survey Results n Concerning the research output: Conference papers, presentations and journal articles in refereed journals are the most-used outputs of a typical current or recent research project both in the Czech Republic and Total. For Czech respondents, the share of refereed journal articles among typical outputs is lower (75% compared with more than 90% in Total)

Versions Project and Survey Results n Concerning revising and storing academic papers intended for refereed journals: Here, the habits of Czech respondents are similar again to the habits of Total. Both usually keep an early draft version (before circulating to anyone), a draft version circulated to colleagues or peers for feedback, a version submitted to a journal for peer review, a final author version that is agreed with the journal (following referee comments), a version produced by the publisher including a proof copy and a final published version (often in PDF format as it appears in the journal itself)

Versions Project and Survey Results n Concerning revising and storing academic papers intended for refereed journals: Both Czech and Total respondants feel that the responsibility for secure storage of different versions of academic papers is shared among authors, authors’ universities/institutes and the publisher, and that subject/institutional repositories should take responsibility for secure storage of the final published version

Versions Project and Survey Results n The use of digital repositories is lower in Czech universities than in Total. The Czech willingness to put the final author version into a digital repository is similar to the Total’s willingness. The main reason is that authors believe it helps to disseminate research results quickly. Authors in both samples are not sure if the publisher copyright agreement allows this.

Versions Project and Survey Results n Authors’ priority in both samples remains to place the publisher PDF on their personal websites, if permitted

Versions Project and Survey Results n Authors in both samples broadly use other dissemination routes for their research findings— personal or university websites for working or discussion papers and paper series such as REPEC, IDEAS, EconPapers and SSRN, and would welcome if their university could deposit research outputs in those alternative channels on their behalf

Versions Project and Survey Results n Authors in both samples are interested in making openly accessible to the general public (if permitted) the final author version and especially the final published version. Authors in Total stress more the final published version. They do not have a full understanding of which version are they permitted to disseminate in full text

Versions Project and Survey Results n Other questions are about the handling of multiple versions of the same academic paper: the frequency of finding multiple versions, the difficulties of identification of the version and which version authors usually cite if there are more versions available. It is very important for authors that cited versions of an online paper remain available at the same location. Answers are similar in both samples

Versions Project and Survey Results n Questions 26–36 of the survey are about the possible standardization of labeling, naming and linking of different versions. Authors in both samples usually consider this to be important or interesting, but not essential

Versions Project and Survey Results n Conclusions u The habits of respondents in both Czech and Total (world) samples are pretty similar. This is a good indicator of the “real convergence” of Czech economic research to the world, if only we had no doubts about how representative the Czech sample is for Czech economic researchers

Versions Project and Survey Results n Conclusions u Czech economic researchers are interested in taking part in international surveys. u In the interdisciplinary climate of contemporary research, we consider the higher engagement of Czech respondents in more subject disciplines to be a positive sign

Versions Project and Survey Results n Conclusions u Taking into account the lower share of articles in refereed journals among typical research outputs of Czech respondents, it is correct that in the official methodology of the Czech R&D Council for the evaluation of the research institutions are the articles in refereed journals more weighted than the other research outputs. This can motivate Czech researchers to close the gap. The evaluation method is at

Versions Project and Survey Results n Conclusions u There is space for Czech university management to develop digital repositories; the necessary condition is to consider the copyright of publishers; informative database SHERPA-ROMEO at u Examples of institutional repositories are LSE Research Online and Tilburg University’s Academic Output

Look at samba.fsv.cuni.cz/~cahlik directory H-index and Versions Project for - paper - presentation - raw data from LSE

Thank you for your attention