Editorial
What does the H index cost?
¿Qué cuesta el índice H?
J.C. Pastor
Corresponding author
Universidad de Valladolid, Valladolid, Spain
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"tieneTextoCompleto" => true "paginas" => array:1 [ 0 => array:2 [ "paginaInicial" => "601" "paginaFinal" => "602" ] ] "autores" => array:1 [ 0 => array:4 [ "autoresLista" => "J.C. Pastor" "autores" => array:1 [ 0 => array:4 [ "nombre" => "J.C." "apellidos" => "Pastor" "email" => array:1 [ 0 => "pastor@ioba.med.uva.es" ] "referencia" => array:1 [ 0 => array:2 [ "etiqueta" => "<span class="elsevierStyleSup">*</span>" "identificador" => "cor0005" ] ] ] ] "afiliaciones" => array:1 [ 0 => array:2 [ "entidad" => "Universidad de Valladolid, Valladolid, Spain" "identificador" => "aff0005" ] ] "correspondencia" => array:1 [ 0 => array:3 [ "identificador" => "cor0005" "etiqueta" => "⁎" "correspondencia" => "<span class="elsevierStyleItalic">Corresponding author</span>." ] ] ] ] "titulosAlternativos" => array:1 [ "es" => array:1 [ "titulo" => "¿Qué cuesta el índice H?" ] ] "textoCompleto" => "<span class="elsevierStyleSections"><p id="par0005" class="elsevierStylePara elsevierViewall">Recently, the CSIC published a list of the 5,000 most important Spanish women researchers in order of their H-index.<a class="elsevierStyleCrossRef" href="#bib0005"><span class="elsevierStyleSup">1</span></a></p><p id="par0010" class="elsevierStylePara elsevierViewall">Our institute has five female researchers on this list.</p><p id="par0015" class="elsevierStylePara elsevierViewall">This index, proposed by Jorge Hirsch in 2005, was intended to measure the professional quality of physicists, based on the number of citations their articles receive.<a class="elsevierStyleCrossRef" href="#bib0010"><span class="elsevierStyleSup">2</span></a></p><p id="par0020" class="elsevierStylePara elsevierViewall">It is calculated by ordering them from highest to lowest according to the number of citations received, the H-index being the number in which the order number coincides with the number of citations.</p><p id="par0025" class="elsevierStylePara elsevierViewall">The so-called index has become an icon for many courts and many wield it as an absolute index of quality. It is not. It is an index of the researcher's role as a reference in a particular subject.</p><p id="par0030" class="elsevierStylePara elsevierViewall">In this context, let us reflect on the cost of the table of contents and the phenomenal business of many scientific journal publishers who bombard us with emails in which, having been “dazzled” by one of our publications on the toxicity of perfluorocarbons, they ask us to work for a journal of “Plants and Nutrition” (no joke), offering you to be a member of their Editorial Board. Many readers know what I am talking about.</p><p id="par0035" class="elsevierStylePara elsevierViewall">The history of publications usually starts with the doctoral thesis. Young researchers have to have an indexed publication in order to be able to present their thesis and that’s when the problem is created. What was designed to improve the quality of theses has become a headache for doctoral students and supervisors.</p><p id="par0040" class="elsevierStylePara elsevierViewall">Of course, after a few years of working on a thesis, one is capable of writing something interesting. But the regulations require the work to be accepted, and this is where the problems start. You write the paper and have to start paying for the services of a certified English editor to avoid its rejection.</p><p id="par0045" class="elsevierStylePara elsevierViewall">Next, you are faced with the problem of the type of journal and publishing system you are going to choose. This is not a trivial issue, as most of them do not charge authors for advertising.</p><p id="par0050" class="elsevierStylePara elsevierViewall">If you decide to send it to <span class="elsevierStyleItalic">Ophthalmology</span> it's Є3,500 and if you decide to send it to <span class="elsevierStyleItalic">Nature it's</span> Є10,000 (assuming they accept it).</p><p id="par0055" class="elsevierStylePara elsevierViewall">The second big question is: do we publish it <span class="elsevierStyleItalic">open-access</span>? Because it is easy for a “normal” journal to take six or more months to reply and they often reject the work. And the PhD student is in a hurry to publish and present his thesis.</p><p id="par0060" class="elsevierStylePara elsevierViewall">The “open-access” journals have found a gold vein. They are much more expensive, but they take a little less time, and that is where the pressure begins for the PhD student and the editor: the publication has to be paid for. And the big scientific question arises: where do we charge the bill?</p><p id="par0065" class="elsevierStylePara elsevierViewall">Because one of the countless advantages of belonging to the European Union is not administrative simplification. If these expenses were not contemplated in the project application, they are “ineligible” expenses, a very popular word among researchers and which means that you cannot “scrape” anything out of them. In addition, the average funding for a state project is around Є30,000 and for a regional call, Є10,000. And you are supposed to carry out the project.</p><p id="par0070" class="elsevierStylePara elsevierViewall">The amounts are scarce and we have improved. In 2011 the Instituto de Salud Carlos III gave citizens of the Murcia region an average of Є16,766 per project.<a class="elsevierStyleCrossRef" href="#bib0015"><span class="elsevierStyleSup">3</span></a></p><p id="par0075" class="elsevierStylePara elsevierViewall">This situation is compounded by other problems. One is the proliferation of journals, generally located in Asian countries, which bombard you asking you to send them papers and offering very favourable economic conditions. But a researcher-teacher wants to publish in an indexed journal, with a high impact index, and if possible in the first quartile (Q1). In Ophthalmology, according to the Journal Citation Report of 2021, there are 61 indexed journals and only 15 of them in Q1, which is what ANECA now assesses for university teaching staff accreditation. You can discard the other quartiles. Moreover, in certain autonomous communities, in order to establish groups of excellence, 65% of the publications must be Q1. In other words, if a member of the group publishes in Q2 or Q3, the percentage drops.</p><p id="par0080" class="elsevierStylePara elsevierViewall">The other effect is that low-level journals (so-called “predatory journals”) are asking you to review papers all day long. Because the other big problem is the lack of peer reviewers.</p><p id="par0085" class="elsevierStylePara elsevierViewall">And here a question arises. Since journals are now paid, how is the reviewer paid? Because the work is complex and demanding. If you accept, the journal's computer systems bombard you every so often reminding you that you are going to miss the deadline.</p><p id="par0090" class="elsevierStylePara elsevierViewall">The reward is nothing or a certificate or a small discount if you want to publish, naturally in their journal. The result is as expected: you send in a paper, they take 8 or 9 months to get back to you and they tell you that they don't have suitable reviewers.</p><p id="par0095" class="elsevierStylePara elsevierViewall">These issues run deep and solutions should be adopted in partnership. Some publishers are already negotiating with universities to counteract these problems.</p><p id="par0100" class="elsevierStylePara elsevierViewall">Let's go back to the beginning. The IOBA publishes about 40 publications a year and we spend a lot on this because we are evaluated every 5 years by the ACSUCyL and this is fundamental. At an average of Є3,000 per publication, we spend the equivalent of 4 or 5 pre-doctoral contracts just on publishing. But it is obvious that not publishing, for us, is not an option.</p><p id="par0105" class="elsevierStylePara elsevierViewall">One of our researchers has an H index of 45 achieved thanks to 200 publications, so her index has cost more than Є600,000 (figures corrected to 2022). That's about Є15,000 per point. Of course, research is expensive.</p><p id="par0110" class="elsevierStylePara elsevierViewall">But if you don't get involved in this dynamics you are automatically expelled from the system. You can't have six-year periods, you can't sit on tribunals, you can't supervise theses and many other “calamities” that are unacceptable for a researcher. But the situation is already unsustainable, especially for groups that are just starting out. We should rethink these things and propose solutions, at least those of us who are members of the boards of scientific journals.</p><span id="sec0005" class="elsevierStyleSection elsevierViewall"><span class="elsevierStyleSectionTitle" id="sect0005">Conflict of interest</span><p id="par0115" class="elsevierStylePara elsevierViewall">No conflicts of interest were declared by the author.</p></span></span>" "textoCompletoSecciones" => array:1 [ "secciones" => array:2 [ 0 => array:2 [ "identificador" => "sec0005" "titulo" => "Conflict of interest" ] 1 => array:1 [ "titulo" => "References" ] ] ] "pdfFichero" => "main.pdf" "tienePdf" => true "NotaPie" => array:1 [ 0 => array:2 [ "etiqueta" => "☆" "nota" => "<p class="elsevierStyleNotepara" id="npar0005">Please cite this article as: Pastor JC. ¿Qué cuesta el índice H? Arch Soc Esp Oftalmol. 2022;97:601–602.</p>" ] ] "bibliografia" => array:2 [ "titulo" => "References" "seccion" => array:1 [ 0 => array:2 [ "identificador" => "bibs0005" "bibliografiaReferencia" => array:3 [ 0 => array:3 [ "identificador" => "bib0005" "etiqueta" => "1" "referencia" => array:1 [ 0 => array:1 [ "referenciaCompleta" => "Ranking de investigadoras españolas y extranjeras en España según Google Scholar. Ranking Web of Universities [accessed 8 Aug 2022]. Available from: <a target="_blank" href="https://www.webometrics.info/en/investigadoras">https://www.webometrics.info/en/investigadoras</a>." ] ] ] 1 => array:3 [ "identificador" => "bib0010" "etiqueta" => "2" "referencia" => array:1 [ 0 => array:1 [ "referenciaCompleta" => "Evaluación de la Investigación: Índice H. Guías de la BUH [accessed 8 Aug 2022]. Available from: <a target="_blank" href="https://guiasbuh.uhu.es/c.php?g=655120&p=4605523">https://guiasbuh.uhu.es/c.php?g=655120&p=4605523</a>." ] ] ] 2 => array:3 [ "identificador" => "bib0015" "etiqueta" => "3" "referencia" => array:1 [ 0 => array:1 [ "referenciaCompleta" => "Instituto de Salud Carlos III destina cerca de 503.000 euros para financiar 30 proyectos de investigación en la Región. La Vanguardia [accessed 8 Aug 2022]. Available from: <a target="_blank" href="https://www.lavanguardia.com/local/20120307/54265809669/instituto-de-salud-carlos-iii-destina-cerca-de-503-000-euros-para-financiar-30-proyectos-de.html">https://www.lavanguardia.com/local/20120307/54265809669/instituto-de-salud-carlos-iii-destina-cerca-de-503-000-euros-para-financiar-30-proyectos-de.html</a>." ] ] ] ] ] ] ] ] "idiomaDefecto" => "en" "url" => "/21735794/0000009700000011/v2_202301300805/S2173579422001505/v2_202301300805/en/main.assets" "Apartado" => array:4 [ "identificador" => "5814" "tipo" => "SECCION" "en" => array:2 [ "titulo" => "Editorial" "idiomaDefecto" => true ] "idiomaDefecto" => "en" ] "PDF" => "https://static.elsevier.es/multimedia/21735794/0000009700000011/v2_202301300805/S2173579422001505/v2_202301300805/en/main.pdf?idApp=UINPBA00004N&text.app=https://www.elsevier.es/" "EPUB" => "https://multimedia.elsevier.es/PublicationsMultimediaV1/item/epub/S2173579422001505?idApp=UINPBA00004N" ]
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