Evaluating High Impact Papers: Are We Missing Something?

Abstract

The bibliographic science papers with high citations rates are often used as an indication of the science impact of an observatory. These high impact papers are presented as examples of the best science being done with an observatory’s data. But, is the number of citations by itself a good indicator of the scientific impact of the paper, and is impact a good indicator of the scientific impact of the observatory? In this paper we will present results from a recent study of Chandra high impact papers and suggest some alternative methods for identifying such papers. This work has been supported by NASA under contract NAS 8-03060 to the Smithsonian Astrophysical Observatory for operation of the Chandra X-ray Center.