title: Departmental h-Index: Evidence for Publishing Less?
abstract: OBJECTIVE
  The h-index is an established method for determining an individual faculty member's impact on the scientific literature. The purpose of this study was to measure and describe over time the combined h-index of a large university medical imaging department.
  
  
  METHODS
  All faculty members from the Department of Medical Imaging, University of Toronto, were identified from administrative records for 6 separate years between 2000-2014. Individual members' and the departmental h-index were calculated using citation data from the Scopus database. Descriptive univariate statistics were reported. Factors contributing to the change in departmental h-index over time were assessed using linear regression analysis.
  
  
  RESULTS
  The number of faculty members increased from 117 in 2000 to 186 in 2014. The departmental h-index increased from 48 in 2000 to 142 in 2014. During this time period, the median h-index for faculty members increased from 4 (interquartile range 2-8) to 10 (interquartile range 5-19). Regression analysis revealed that for every additional staff member, the departmental h-index increased by 1.4 (standard error = 0.1, P < .01), whereas, by increasing the median h-index of members by 1 the departmental h-index increased by 15.7 (standard error = 0.6, P < .01).
  
  
  CONCLUSIONS
  Our study suggests that to increase a department's h-index, it is important to foster impactful research from within the faculty ranks of the department. The h-index of academic radiology departments is a meaningful tool that allows for evaluation from within and against other academic centres.
authors.affiliation: Department of Medical Imaging, University of Toronto, Toronto, Ontario, Canada. Electronic address: pascal.tyrrell@utoronto.ca.
authors.forename: Pascal N
authors.initials: PN
authors.lastname: Tyrrell
authors.affiliation: Department of Medical Imaging, University of Toronto, Toronto, Ontario, Canada.
authors.forename: Alan R
authors.initials: AR
authors.lastname: Moody
authors.affiliation: Department of Medical Imaging, University of Toronto, Toronto, Ontario, Canada.
authors.forename: J Oscar C
authors.initials: JO
authors.lastname: Moody
authors.affiliation: Department of Medical Imaging, University of Toronto, Toronto, Ontario, Canada.
authors.forename: Neda
authors.initials: N
authors.lastname: Ghiam
mesh_terms: D000046:Academic Medical Centers / Q000706:statistics & numerical data; D015706:Bibliometrics; D002170:Canada; D016208:Databases, Factual / Q000706:statistics & numerical data; D005178:Faculty / Q000706:statistics & numerical data*; D006801:Humans; D011643:Publishing / Q000706:statistics & numerical data*; D011871:Radiology / Q000706:statistics & numerical data*
keywords: Bibliometrics; Medical Imaging research; Scopus; h-Index