Printer-friendly version

Browse the glossary using this index

Special | A | B | C | D | E | F | G | H | I | J | K | L | M | N | O | P | Q | R | S | T | U | V | W | X | Y | Z | ALL

K

Kardashian Index

The Kardashian Index (K-Index), named after Kim Kardashian, is a satirical measure of the discrepancy between a scientist's social media profile and publication record.Proposed by Neil Hall in 2014, the measure compares the number of followers a research scientist has on Twitter to the number of citations they have for their peer-reviewed work.

The relationship between the number of Twitter followers F and the number of citations  C is described as:


{\displaystyle F(c)=43.3C^{0.32}}

which is derived from the Twitter accounts and citation counts of a "randomish selection of 40 scientists" in 2014.The Kardashian Index is thus calculated as:


{\displaystyle {\text{K-index}}={\frac {F_{a}}{F(c)}}}

where F_{a} is the actual number of Twitter followers of researcher  X and F(c) is the number that researcher should have, given their citations.

Found in: Wikipedia