title: Inter-rater reliability of h-index scores calculated by Web of Science and Scopus for clinical epidemiology scientists.
abstract: OBJECTIVE
  We investigated the inter-rater reliability of Web of Science (WoS) and Scopus when calculating the h-index of 25 senior scientists in the Clinical Epidemiology Program of the Ottawa Hospital Research Institute.
  
  
  METHODS
  Bibliometric information and the h-indices for the subjects were computed by four raters using the automatic calculators in WoS and Scopus. Correlation and agreement between ratings was assessed using Spearman's correlation coefficient and a Bland-Altman plot, respectively.
  
  
  RESULTS
  Data could not be gathered from Google Scholar due to feasibility constraints. The Spearman's rank correlation between the h-index of scientists calculated with WoS was 0.81 (95% CI 0.72-0.92) and with Scopus was 0.95 (95% CI 0.92-0.99). The Bland-Altman plot showed no significant rater bias in WoS and Scopus; however, the agreement between ratings is higher in Scopus compared to WoS.
  
  
  CONCLUSIONS
  Our results showed a stronger relationship and increased agreement between raters when calculating the h-index of a scientist using Scopus compared to WoS. The higher inter-rater reliability and simple user interface used in Scopus may render it the more effective database when calculating the h-index of senior scientists in epidemiology.
authors.affiliation: Clinical Epidemiology Program, Ottawa Hospital Research Institute, Ottawa, ON, Canada.
authors.forename: Benjamin
authors.initials: B
authors.lastname: Walker
authors.affiliation: Clinical Epidemiology Program, Ottawa Hospital Research Institute, Ottawa, ON, Canada.
authors.forename: Sepand
authors.initials: S
authors.lastname: Alavifard
authors.affiliation: Clinical Epidemiology Program, Ottawa Hospital Research Institute, Ottawa, ON, Canada.
authors.forename: Surain
authors.initials: S
authors.lastname: Roberts
authors.affiliation: Clinical Epidemiology Program, Ottawa Hospital Research Institute, Ottawa, ON, Canada.
authors.forename: Andrea
authors.initials: A
authors.lastname: Lanes
authors.affiliation: Clinical Epidemiology Program, Ottawa Hospital Research Institute, Ottawa, ON, Canada.
authors.forename: Tim
authors.initials: T
authors.lastname: Ramsay
authors.affiliation: Department of Anesthesiology & Department of Innovation in Medical Education, The Ottawa Hospital - General Campus, Ottawa, ON, Canada.
authors.forename: Sylvain
authors.initials: S
authors.lastname: Boet
mesh_terms: D015706:Bibliometrics; D016206:Databases, Bibliographic; D006801:Humans; D020407:Internet; D009864:Ontario; D011643:Publishing; D015203:Reproducibility of Results; D012108:Research Personnel
keywords: Bibliographic databases; bibliometrics; citation analysis; database searching