Should self-citations be included or excluded from measures of academic performance?

There has been much discussion over how useful citation metrics, like Google Scholar’s H-index, really are and to what extent they can be gamed. Specifically there appears to be concern over the practice of self-citation as it varies widely between disciplines. So what should academics make of self-citations? Referring back to our Handbook on Maximising the Impact of Your Research, the Public Policy Group assess the key issues and advise that self-citations by researchers and teams are a perfectly legitimate and relevant aspect of disciplinary practice. But individuals should take care to ensure their own self-citation rate is not above the average for their particular discipline.