HistCite analysis of papers constituting the h index research front

In the Essential Science Indicators (Thomson Reuters), a research front exists to the h index (entitled “GOOGLE SCHOLAR H-INDEX; SCIENCE CITATION INDEX; GENERALIZED HIRSCH H-INDEX; H INDEX; GOOGLE SCHOLAR CITATIONS”) consisting of a group of highly cited papers. We used HistCite to analyze the structure and relationships of the 45 papers forming the h index research front. Since we were interested in the topics of research on the h index at the front, we classified each paper according to its main topic. Six topics (inductively generated) were sufficient to classify the 45 papers: (1) citation database, (2) empirical validation study, (3) new application, (4) theoretical analysis, (5) new index development, and (6) literature review.