Scrutinising uncitedness and few h-type indicators of selected Indian physics and astronomy journals

Abstract

The uncitedness of twelve Indian physics and astronomy journals over twelve years (2009-2020) time span is analysed here. Besides Uncitedness Factor (UF), three other indicators are discussed, viz., Time-normalized Citation per paper (CY), H-core Density (HD) and Time-normalised H-index (TH). The journal-wise variational patterns of these four indicators, i.e., UF, CY, HD and TH and the relationships of UF with the other three indicators are analysed. The calculated numerical values of these indicators are observed to formulate seven hypotheses, which are tested by the F-Test method. The average annual rate of change of uncited paper is found to be 67% of the total number of papers. The indicator CY is found temporally constant. The indicator HD is found to be nearly constant journal-wise over the entire time span, while the indicator TH is found to be nearly constant for all the journals. The UF inversely varies with CY and TH for the journals and directly varies with TH over the years. Except for a few Indian journals in physics and astronomy, the majority of the other journals face the situation of uncitedness. The uncitedness of Indian journals in this field is higher by 12% as compared to foreign journals in the same field, which indicates a possible poor circulation of the journals.