Author | Lightnews

Gaurav Sharma @sharmag30.bsky.social · 4d

Let’s talk sometime. We can think of doing it together.

Gaurav Sharma @sharmag30.bsky.social · 5d

This is doable but I hope you understand that they have to give this custom weights for each of their paper, which is a bulky user task.

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Gaurav Sharma @sharmag30.bsky.social · 5d

bsky.app/profile/shar...
Please see this. It will help.

Gaurav Sharma @sharmag30.bsky.social · 5d

1️⃣We are not extracting authorship via text mining from full papers as journals differ too much in formatting.

👉First, mark your First/co-first authors with ^ sign and Corresponding/co-corresponding with * sign in your Google Scholar profile (like your CV).
Once done, the tool works seamlessly.

3/n

Reposted by Gaurav Sharma

Ragothaman Yennamalli @structbioinfo.bsky.social · 5d

A Sunday morning Data Wrangling Exercise...

Gaurav Sharma and I discussed what this new Sh-Index means. Post-preprint and now featured in Nature Index, there has been vocal criticism and rightly so. We discussed again and I have been using it not actually intended. Also.. 🧵 1/8

Harmit Singh Malik @harmitmalik.bsky.social · 6d

I know the modified H index (or the Sh index) is getting a lot of grief in social media discussions but it allows a simple calculation: what’s the difference between your h index and your Sh index? If that difference is small or zero, what does that tell us about what kind of collaborator you are?

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Gaurav Sharma @sharmag30.bsky.social · 5d

This is a fair point. However, if we do such modifications in our offline CVs, why we cannot do it for our online CV? From tool point of view (speed and efficiency), extracting information is too tough.

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Reposted by Gaurav Sharma

Ross Miller @rosshm16.bsky.social · 6d

Seeing some meltdowns over this this morning. To be clear, this is an optional browser extension by creators unaffiliated with Google. GS itself still just reports the vanilla h-index.

Goodhart's Law is among my favorite adages ("when a measure becomes a target, it ceases to be a good measure").

Google Scholar tool gives extra credit to first and last authors

Researchers welcome the initiative, but say it doesn’t go far enough to capture the nuance of researcher productivity and impact.

www.nature.com

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Reposted by Gaurav Sharma

Pouya Bashivan 🇮🇷🇨🇦 @bashivan.bsky.social · 5d

Despite the negative feelings about this, I sense some complementary metric like this that measures leadership vs collaboration would be very informative

megan peters 🧠 @meganakpeters.bsky.social · 6d

This is such a horrifically bad idea that I don't even know where to begin.
www.nature.com/articles/d41...

Oh wait, yes I do. I wrote a whole article about it last year: www.thetransmitter.org/publishing/a...

Google Scholar tool gives extra credit to first and last authors

Researchers welcome the initiative, but say it doesn’t go far enough to capture the nuance of researcher productivity and impact.

www.nature.com

1 1 3

Gaurav Sharma @sharmag30.bsky.social · 5d

worth reading about how authorships are attributed. Almost 70% of researchers based in Europe say that they have been involved in projects in the past three years that listed authors who did not contribute sufficiently to the work.
Rules must change! We must change!

www.nature.com/articles/d41...

Unearned authorship pervades science

Research-integrity survey also suggests that there is a split in US- and Europe-based researchers’ perceptions of ‘questionable research practices’.

www.nature.com

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Gaurav Sharma @sharmag30.bsky.social · 5d

It is worth reading too in this context:

www.nature.com/articles/d41...

Unearned authorship pervades science

Research-integrity survey also suggests that there is a split in US- and Europe-based researchers’ perceptions of ‘questionable research practices’.

www.nature.com

Reposted by Gaurav Sharma

Patrick Hamilton @patbhamilton.bsky.social · 5d

This sh index will give something for researchers to argue about for the next few months.

Like h index, but extra points for the first & last authors.

www.nature.com/articles/d41...

Google Scholar tool gives extra credit to first and last authors

Researchers welcome the initiative, but say it doesn’t go far enough to capture the nuance of researcher productivity and impact.

www.nature.com

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Gaurav Sharma @sharmag30.bsky.social · 5d

You may try using it once more after reading this. If you don’t find it interesting even then, I will rest my case 😎

bsky.app/profile/shar...

Gaurav Sharma @sharmag30.bsky.social · 5d

Our lab’s open-science tool, GScholarLens, has been featured by @nature.com, beautifully written by Dalmeet Chawla @dalmeet.bsky.social.
The article highlights how it brings transparency to scientific metrics using authorship weightage.

Link: www.nature.com/articles/d41...

1/n

Google Scholar tool gives extra credit to first and last authors

Researchers welcome the initiative, but say it doesn’t go far enough to capture the nuance of researcher productivity and impact.

www.nature.com

Reposted by Gaurav Sharma

Sayan Mitra @sayanmitra.com · 5d

𝘩-index, a popular measure of impact based on publications and citations over time, treats all of an author’s papers equally, regardless of their position on the paper. GScholarLens, a browser extension, aims to change this for Google Scholar users. #AcademicChatter www.nature.com/articles/d41...

Google Scholar tool gives extra credit to first and last authors

Researchers welcome the initiative, but say it doesn’t go far enough to capture the nuance of researcher productivity and impact.

www.nature.com

1 4

Gaurav Sharma @sharmag30.bsky.social · 5d

bsky.app/profile/shar...

Thanks for posting about this. FYI this tool is not punishing co-first and co-corresponding authors. An author has to update the information on GS about who are the all first or all corresponding. Once they have done it, GScholarLens works efficiently. I hope it helps.

Gaurav Sharma @sharmag30.bsky.social · 5d

Our lab’s open-science tool, GScholarLens, has been featured by @nature.com, beautifully written by Dalmeet Chawla @dalmeet.bsky.social.
The article highlights how it brings transparency to scientific metrics using authorship weightage.

Link: www.nature.com/articles/d41...

1/n

Google Scholar tool gives extra credit to first and last authors

Researchers welcome the initiative, but say it doesn’t go far enough to capture the nuance of researcher productivity and impact.

www.nature.com

1

Gaurav Sharma @sharmag30.bsky.social · 5d

Thanks for giving it a better name 😂. All indexes are flawed, we data analytics people can help in making them less flawed.

Please check this so that you can use it in a better manner and give your suggestions.

bsky.app/profile/shar...

Gaurav Sharma @sharmag30.bsky.social · 5d

Our lab’s open-science tool, GScholarLens, has been featured by @nature.com, beautifully written by Dalmeet Chawla @dalmeet.bsky.social.
The article highlights how it brings transparency to scientific metrics using authorship weightage.

Link: www.nature.com/articles/d41...

1/n

Google Scholar tool gives extra credit to first and last authors

Researchers welcome the initiative, but say it doesn’t go far enough to capture the nuance of researcher productivity and impact.

www.nature.com

Gaurav Sharma @sharmag30.bsky.social · 5d

Completely true. Data analytics can help a bit in improving them and making them less flawed.

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Gaurav Sharma @sharmag30.bsky.social · 5d

Thank you for writing about this. The Sh-index is normalised & more informative than h-index. A small difference between Sh- & h-index suggests active involvement in lead projects, while a large drop indicates citations mainly from coauthored rather than lead contributions.

Harmit Singh Malik @harmitmalik.bsky.social · 6d

I know the modified H index (or the Sh index) is getting a lot of grief in social media discussions but it allows a simple calculation: what’s the difference between your h index and your Sh index? If that difference is small or zero, what does that tell us about what kind of collaborator you are?

Gaurav Sharma @sharmag30.bsky.social · 5d

Thank you for writing about this. The Sh-index is normalised & more informative than h-index. A small difference between Sh- & h-index suggests active involvement in lead projects, while a large drop indicates citations mainly from coauthored rather than lead contributions.

bsky.app/profile/shar...

Gaurav Sharma @sharmag30.bsky.social · 5d

Our lab’s open-science tool, GScholarLens, has been featured by @nature.com, beautifully written by Dalmeet Chawla @dalmeet.bsky.social.
The article highlights how it brings transparency to scientific metrics using authorship weightage.

Link: www.nature.com/articles/d41...

1/n

Google Scholar tool gives extra credit to first and last authors

Researchers welcome the initiative, but say it doesn’t go far enough to capture the nuance of researcher productivity and impact.

www.nature.com

Gaurav Sharma @sharmag30.bsky.social · 5d

www.nature.com/articles/d41...

Almost 70% of researchers based in Europe say that they have been involved in projects in the past three years that listed authors who did not contribute sufficiently to the work.

Unearned authorship pervades science

Research-integrity survey also suggests that there is a split in US- and Europe-based researchers’ perceptions of ‘questionable research practices’.

www.nature.com

2

Gaurav Sharma @sharmag30.bsky.social · 5d

Thanks for your comment. Yes, it doesn’t check for field variability. That is why we are saying it to use only for those fields where author positions matter.

Gaurav Sharma @sharmag30.bsky.social · 5d

bsky.app/profile/shar...

Thank you for being a positive reviewer of this tool. We have already answered some of your questions. Please check this thread.

Gaurav Sharma @sharmag30.bsky.social · 5d

Our lab’s open-science tool, GScholarLens, has been featured by @nature.com, beautifully written by Dalmeet Chawla @dalmeet.bsky.social.
The article highlights how it brings transparency to scientific metrics using authorship weightage.

Link: www.nature.com/articles/d41...

1/n

Google Scholar tool gives extra credit to first and last authors

Researchers welcome the initiative, but say it doesn’t go far enough to capture the nuance of researcher productivity and impact.

www.nature.com

Reposted by Gaurav Sharma

samuel mehr @mehr.nz · 6d

this is cool: Google Scholar extension that automates what many people already do when viewing a profile: adjusting the metrics

eg if a person is 27th author on a paper w/ 10K cites....probably that should be downweighted

metrics suck but they aren't going anywhere, so may as well use better ones

Google Scholar tool gives extra credit to first and last authors

Researchers welcome the initiative, but say it doesn’t go far enough to capture the nuance of researcher productivity and impact.

www.nature.com

5 3 14

Gaurav Sharma @sharmag30.bsky.social · 5d

We’ll continue refining #GScholarLens and addressing your feedback.
Appreciate the discussion — that’s how open science should work. 💡
Stay tuned, and keep questioning constructively! 🙌

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Gaurav Sharma @sharmag30.bsky.social · 5d

5️⃣ Why do corresponding authors get 10% more weightage than first authors?
-Because they usually:
-Secure funding
-Guide research direction
-Ensure integrity
-Handle post-publication issues (including retractions)

This aligns with ICMJE & CRediT roles defining their leadership & accountability.

7/n

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Gaurav Sharma @sharmag30.bsky.social · 5d

4️⃣ Some researchers lead fewer projects but collaborate widely. Shouldn’t there be a balance between lead and collaborative works? If you agree, this tool is for you.

If not, that’s fine too, it’s all about perspective.
GScholarLens visualizes this balance and the citations earned in each role.

6/n

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Gaurav Sharma @sharmag30.bsky.social · 5d

3️⃣ Let’s be clear — no metric can judge quality.
We completely agree with this too.

#GScholarLens doesn’t claim to assess quality — it only adds context to how authors contribute across papers and how balanced they are.

5/n

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