A fair assignment of credit for multi-authored publications is a long-standing issue in scientometrics. In the calculation of the $h$-index, for instance, all co-authors receive equal credit for a given publication, independent of a given author’s contribution to the work or of the total number of co-authors. Several attempts have been made to distribute the credit in a more appropriate manner. In a recent paper, Hirsch has suggested a new way of credit assignment that is fundamentally different from the previous ones: All credit for a multi-author paper goes to a single author, the called “$\alpha$-author”, defined as the person with the highest current $h$-index (not the highest $h$-index at the time of the paper’s publication) (Hirsch, 2019). The collection of papers this author has received credit for as $\alpha$-author is then used to calculate a new index, $h_{\alpha }$, following the same recipe as for the usual $h$ index. The objective of this new assignment is not a fairer distribution of credit, but rather the determination of an altogether different property, the degree of a person’s scientific leadership. We show that given the complex time dependence of $h$ for individual scientists, the approach of using the current $h$ value instead of the historic one is problematic, and we argue that it would be feasible to determine the $\alpha$-author at the time of the paper’s publication instead. On the other hand, there are other practical considerations that make the calculation of the proposed $h_{\alpha }$ very difficult. As an alternative, we explore other ways of crediting papers to a single author in order to test early career achievement or scientific leadership.

公平分配多作者出版物是科学计量学中的一个长期问题。在计算中$H$例如，-index，所有合著者对于给定的出版物都享有同等的信誉，而与给定作者对作品的贡献或合著者总数无关。已经进行了几次尝试以更适当的方式分配信用额。赫希（Hirsch）在最近的一篇论文中提出了一种新的学分分配方法，该方法与以前的方法有根本的不同：​​多作者论文的所有学分归单个作者所有，称为“$\alpha$-作者”，即最新的人 $H$-index（不是最高$H$论文发表时的索引）（Hirsch，2019）。作者的论文集已被认可为$\alpha$然后使用-author来计算新索引， $H_{\alpha }$，遵循与通常相同的食谱 $H$指数。这项新任务的目的不是公平分配信贷，而是确定完全不同的财产，一个人的科学领导程度。我们表明，鉴于复杂的时间依赖性$H$ 对于个别科学家，使用当前方法 $H$ 价值而不是历史价值是有问题的，我们认为确定 $\alpha$-在论文发表时改为作者。另一方面，还有其他一些实际考虑因素会影响提议的计算$H_{\alpha }$ 非常困难。作为替代方案，我们探索将论文记入单个作者的其他方式，以测试早期的职业成就或科学领导力。