Restricting the h-index to a publication and citation time window: A case study of a timed Hirsch index

•The evaluation of the h-index is limited to a publication and citation time window.•Thus the proposed timed h-index concentrates on recent publications and citations.•Therefore one can view the evolution of the timed h-index during the entire career.•This circumvents the inertia of the usual h-index (mostly due to old publications).•Different time windows are utilized and discussed regarding their practicality.

The h-index has been shown to increase in many cases mostly because of citations to rather old publications. This inertia can be circumvented by restricting the evaluation to a publication and citation time window. Here I report results of an empirical study analyzing the evolution of the thus defined timed h-index in dependence on the length of the time window.

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