Confronta i metodi

	H-Index	Journal Impact Factor
Campo	Bibliometria	Bibliometria
Famiglia	Process / pipeline	Process / pipeline
Anno di origine	2005	1955
Ideatore	Jorge Hirsch, University of California San Diego	Eugene Garfield, Institute for Scientific Information (ISI)
Tipo	Metric	Metric
Fonte seminale	Hirsch, J. E. (2005). An index to quantify an individual's scientific research output. Proceedings of the National Academy of Sciences USA, 102(46), 16569-16572.	Garfield, E. (1972). Citation analysis as a tool in journal evaluation. Science, 178(4060), 471-479.
Alias	Hirsch index, h factor, h-number	IF, JIF, Impact Factor, 2-year Impact Factor
Correlati	5	5
Sintesi	The h-index, or Hirsch index, is a quantitative metric proposed by physicist Jorge Hirsch in 2005 to measure researcher productivity and citation impact simultaneously. A researcher has an h-index of h if they have published at least h papers, each cited at least h times. For example, an h-index of 20 means the researcher has 20 papers each cited at least 20 times. The h-index is widely used in research evaluation, hiring, and promotion decisions, though experts debate its limitations. It provides a single number balancing quantity of publications against quality of citations, offering an intuitive summary of research career impact.	Journal Impact Factor (JIF) is a metric developed by Eugene Garfield in 1955 and published annually by Clarivate Analytics through Journal Citation Reports (JCR). It measures the average citation frequency of articles published in a journal over a two-year window, serving as a proxy for journal prestige and influence. A journal's Impact Factor equals the number of citations received in year Y to articles published in Y-1 and Y-2, divided by the number of citable items published in that same window. Despite widespread adoption in research evaluation, Impact Factor has significant limitations and critics argue it conflates journal prestige with article quality.