Abstract

TORRO-ALVES, N. et al. Hirsch's index: a case study conducted at the Faculdade de Filosofia, Ciências e Letras de Ribeirão Preto, Universidade de São Paulo. Braz J Med Biol Res [online]. 2007, vol.40, n.11, pp. 1529-1536. ISSN 1414-431X.  http://dx.doi.org/10.1590/S0100-879X2007001100013.

An analysis of scientific bibliographic productivity using the Hirsch h-index, information from the Institute of Scientific Information database and the Curriculum Lattes (CNPq, Brazil) was performed at the Faculdade de Filosofia, Ciências e Letras de Ribeirão Preto, Universidade de São Paulo (FFCLRP-USP) that has four departments in natural, biological and social sciences. Bibliometric evaluations of undergraduate programs showed a better performance of the departments of Chemistry (P < 0.001) and Biology (P < 0.001) when compared to the departments of Physics and Mathematics and Psychology and Education. We also analyzed the scientific output of the six graduate programs of FFCLRP: Psychology, Psychobiology, Chemistry, Physics Applied to Medicine and Biology, Comparative Biology, and Entomology. The graduate program in Psychology presented a lower h-index (P < 0.001) and had fewer papers indexed by the ISI web of science (P < 0.001) when compared to the other graduate programs. The poorer performance of the Psychology program may be associated with the limited coverage by the Thompson Institute of Scientific Information database.

Keywords : H-index; Scientometrics; Science in Brazil.