On Google Scholar H-Index Manipulation by Merging Articles

Van Bevern, R., Komusiewicz, C., Niedermeier, R., Sorge, M., & Walsh, T. (2014). On Google Scholar H-Index Manipulation by Merging Articles. arXiv preprint arXiv:1412.5498

Google Scholar allows merging multiple article versions into one. This merging affects the H-index computed by Google Scholar. The parameterized complexity of maximizing the H-index using article merges is analized. Multiple possible measures for computing the citation count of a merged article are considered.

Two ways of measuring the number of citations of a merged article are proposed. One of these two new measures seems to be the one actually used by Google Scholar. Second, a model for restricting the set of posible merge operations is also proposed. Although Google Scholar allows merges between arbitrary articles, such a restriction is still motivated: even an untruthful scientist may try to merge only superficially similar articles in order to conceal the

manipulation. The variant in which only a limited number of merges may be applied in order to achieve a desired H-index are also considered. This is again motivated by the fact that an untruthful scientist may try to conceal the manipulation by performing only few changes to the own profile.

In conclusion, an algorithm that maximizes the H-index in linear time if there is only a constant number of versions of the same article is proposed.