scoring scientists - h index et al (Sep/30/2010 )

Hi,
I have never played much attention to how scientists are scored... until now.
It is so not fair to use the h-index on someone who has just finished their PhD!! Ok, so that someone is me. Still, I have had 2 papers that only came out, of course they aren't going to be cited yet...if at all.

Also, does anyone else think it's odd that grants for a first post doc are given to people who have already been working on the project as a post doc for over a year? If it's for people already in the position, why not advertise it as such? If a student has no chance of getting it, why do they advertise it for students?

So frustrating.

V

Completly agree. The H factor can only be used to rate established scientists, if at all. I know two great scientists (not me) who work on taxonomy and describe two or more new species a year. Problem is: papers with new species are rearly cited, so they will never get a high H-factor. On the other hand one of the highest cited paper from my faculty was only cited because it was complete rubbish and people cited it because they vere very annoyed by this paper; still the citations increase the h-factor.

Also IF ratings are not fair....could add a long rant to this topic as well.

Never heard about the h factor .
I know impact factors, but how do you calculate this H factor? With google scholar?

H-Factor as defined by Wikipedia:

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/H-index

It is ok to rate established researchers by this factor, but when you are in science for just a few years....

I'll be damned !! . I had NEVER heard about this.
Do people actually include it on their CV? I usually use Google Scholar to see how my papers are cited but this wikipedia suggest that they are overestimating. Hmm.

I have seen it in several CVs lately. Here at our University they are quite keen at it at the moment (probably because the one responsible has a very good H-index . But its really bad for young scientists or scientists that work in a small field....

what is a "good" H-index, then? above 10 or 100?