COPYRIGHTS AND CITATION INDICES FOR SCIENTIFIC PUBLICATIONS OF SCIENTISTS AND SPECIALISTS

Abstract

Scientific publications as works of science are one of the significant objects of copyright. As is known, various indicators are used to assess the scientific productivity of scientists and specialists in scientometrics, the most common of which is the Hirsch index or h-index. The Hirsch index is calculated by the number of citations of a researcher's works included in a particular database. For the CIS countries, an important database of scientific and educational publications is the Russian Science Citation Index (RSCI) database. Internationally, Scopus and Web of Sciences databases have become widespread. One of the problems with using the h-index is whether the ratings comply with copyright regulations. The Hirsch index shows the comparative efficiency of the work of a scientist or a team of scientists. But as it is easy to see, according to the calculation of the h-index according to the RSCI databases, for individual scientists their contribution and participation in collective publications and their citations are not taken into account. In the case when publications are carried out by groups or teams of scientists, all scientists and researchers participating in the publication of a joint scientific work have the status of co-authors of this publication. Relations between co-authors are determined on the basis of an agreement, in the absence of which the copyright for publication is exercised by all co-authors jointly, and the remuneration is distributed equally between them. It is proposed that in order to assess the individual citation index of scientists' publications, introduce a modified Hirsch index, called the Hirsch index “plus” or h+, which is calculated based on dividing the usual number of citations of a particular publication by the number of co-authors of the cited publication, which will not cause difficulties in calculating h+ indices, using algorithm for determining the Hirsch index itself. This indicator takes into account the interests of co-authors from the point of view of copyright and more accurately assesses the effectiveness of the work of a particular scientist in comparative assessments of their work. Also, for a comparative assessment of individual citation indices of scientists and specialists, it is proposed to introduce an author’s index averaging coefficient — k_c, equal to the cube root of the total number of co-authors, by which the corresponding Hirsch index or other citation index of a particular author is divided.