On the Evolution of Journal of Biological Education’s Hirsch Index in the New Century

Abstract

Citation analysis has become a proven tool in research evaluation and policy relevant studies. Recently, J.E. Hirsch has suggested a new indicator, one single index for the assessment of the research performance of individual scientists. In a short time, Hirsch’ definition was easily adapted to citations of journals and articles. The aim of this study is to discuss both what Hirsch index evolution explains us for Journal of Biological Education (JBE) and biological educational subjects which affect h-index of that journal. A case study is conducted for the h-index of JBE over period 2000-2005. By the term variable citation window h-index it meant that it was considered as a fixed moment in time when citations were collected from Web of Science. The evolution of JBE Hirsch index is shown with the self citations and the elimination of journal self citations in related figures. From the data, the Pearson correlation coefficients of regression lines are determined. The quantitative findings show that the h-index evolution of JBE has a positive trend determined in the case of the self and elimination self-citations of the journal over period 2000-2005. Furthermore, the most cited articles are about understanding of students on biological subjects, developing concept mapping in biology and students’ attitutes towards biology teaching.