Author Level Metrics
Author-level metrics are citations metrics that measure the bibliometric impact of individual authors, researchers, academics, and scholars. The most common metric used is h-index.
h-index
h-index is an author-level metric that attempts to measure the productivity of a researcher and the impact (number of citations) of their publications. The index is based on the set of the scientist's most cited papers and the number of citations that they have received in other publications.
How h-index is Calculated
The h-index is defined as the maximum value of h such that the given author/journal has published at least h papers that have each been cited at least h times.
Example:
The h-index is the largest number h such that h articles have at least h citations each. For example, if an author has five publications, with 9, 7, 6, 2, and 1 citations, then the author's h-index is 3, because the author has three publications with 3 or more citations. However, the author does not have four publications with 4 or more citations. (Wikipedia)
Finding Your h-index
Your can obtain your h-index through citation databases such as Scopus, Web of Science, or Google Scholar. Of these three, only Google Scholar is freely accessible. It's important to note that your h-index will change based on the tool your using, due to different coverage in their citation data.
To find your h-index using Google Scholar, you first must create a Google Scholar Profile. You can choose to make your profile public or private.
Publish or Perish is a freely accessible software program that retrieves and analyzes citations. It uses Google Scholar to obtain the raw data, then analyzes these and presents your h-index as well as other useful metrics.