Measuring productivity of scientists: h index

The Wikipedia article is here http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/H-index.

"...a scholar with an index of h has published h papers each of which has been cited by others at least h times" goes the definition. So if you have an h index of 10
then you have your first 10 papers which have been cited at least 10 times each. You may have a total of 50 papers but other papers have not yet been cited "their index number" times each.

If your 11th paper has been cited 10 times, then still your h index is 10. So h index would become 11 if that paper gets one more citation. The 'h' referes to Prof. Hirsch of UCSD who developed this method.

"Hirsch has demonstrated that h has high predictive value for whether a scientist has won honors like National Academy membership or the Nobel Prize."

"The h-index grows as citations accumulate and thus it depends on the 'academic age' of a researcher."

"Hirsch suggested that, for physicists, a value for h of about 10–12 might be a useful guideline for tenure decisions at major research universities. A value of about 18 could mean a full professorship, 15–20 could mean a fellowship in the American Physical Society, and 45 or higher could mean membership in the United States National Academy of Sciences."


So, now you get a clear road-map as to what you have to do in your life to become someone, isn't it? It's all about 'h' index if you are an academic/researcher/scientist.