Alternative indices for author-level metrics
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H-IndexThe most widely used research metric, measures, productivity and impact of an author's scholarly output. Tools for calculating your H-index include Web of Science, Scopus and Google Scholar
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G-IndexAn index for quantifying scientific productivity based on publication record; it was suggested in 2006 by Leo Egghe.
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i10-IndexIndicates the number of academic publications an author has written that have been cited at least 10 times by others. It was introduced in July 2011 by Google as part of Google Scholar
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M-quotientWhile the h-index is independent of the date of an academic's career, the m-quotient aims at weighing the period of academic endeavor so that even junior scientists attain the importance that they deserve.
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Faculty of 1000A directory to the top articles in biology and medicine, as recommended by over 5,000 expert scientists and clinical researchers.
h-index - Author-Level Metric
Your productivity as a researcher can be measured by your total number of articles, and the impact of your research can be measured by the total number of times your articles have been cited. The h-index (AKA Hirsch index) is a combined measure of both productivity and impact. An index of h means that your h most highly-cited articles have at least h citations each. 
The h-index is more informative than total number of articles (which ignores how well those articles have been received by other researchers) or total number of citations (which can be inordinately influenced by a small number of highly-cited articles and therefore not an accurate reflection of productivity).
One caveat about the h-index is that it correlates with the length of a researcher's career (i.e., researchers who have been publishing for longer tend to have higher h-indices). It can also be inflated by self-citation. In addition, the h-index ignores the order of authorship, which is very important in some disciplines. Additionally, because different disciplines have different publishing practices, the h-index should not be used to compare researchers across different disciplines. Average impact scores vary widely from discipline to discipline.
Tools for calculating h-index
Google Scholar: To calculate your h-index and see trends in your impact across time, create a public or private profile. Unlike other databases, Google Scholar provides citation information not only for journal articles but also for conference papers and books.
Publish or Perish: Download this free software, which uses information from Google Scholar to calculate h-index and several h-index alternatives. A companion user's guide, The Publish or Perish Book, is available in the Emory book stacks.
Scholarometer: Install this browser (Firefox or Chrome) extension and search for an author to receive a list of articles, number of citations, h-index, and h-index alternatives based on information from Google Scholar.
Google Scholar Universal Gadget: Search for an author, and this gadget uses information from Google Scholar to calculate number of citations and h-index.
Web of Science (UR subscription): Search for an author, then click Create Citation Analysis to calculate h-index and see trends in impact across time.
NOTE: As these tools use different ways of searching for articles and citations, they tend to provide differing results.
