A proposal for a First-Citation-Speed-Index

In this paper,wedefine a First-Citation-Speed-Index (FCSI) for a set of papers, based on their times of publication and of first citation. The index is based on the definition of a h-index for increasing sequences. We show that the index has several good properties in the sense that the shorter the times are between publication and first citation (in a global manner) the higher the FCSI is. We present two case studies: a first-citation speed comparison of three journals in the field of psychology and a first-citation speed comparison of accepted and rejected, but published elsewhere manuscripts by the journal Angewandte Chemie International Edition. Both case studies indicate that our FCSI satisfies the intuitive feeling of what values a FCSI should have in these cases. © 2010 Elsevier Ltd. All rights reserved.