From: Sandy Thatcher <[log in to unmask]>
Date: Tue, 18 Mar 2014 20:03:05 -0500

My guess is that impact factor plays much less of a role in social
sciences, and even lesser of a role in the humanities, than it does in
the sciences.

I would also wager that the mere fact that a journal is the official
journal of a scholarly society is enough to give it prestige and
immediate impact. If, say, the American Political Science Review
changed its name to The Journal of the American Political Science
Association, it would attract the best contributors regardless of the
name change, just because it is an APSA publication.  Indeed, when the
APSA started a new journal called Perspectives a decade or so ago, it
had immediate prestige just because it was another APSA journal.

Sandy Thatcher


> From: David Groenewegen <[log in to unmask]>
> Date: Tue, 18 Mar 2014 10:42:42 +1100
>
> I would respectfully disagree with Sandy on this - the Impact Factor
> is attached to the journal title, regardless of editorial board or
> publisher. As such, the title is the most valuable part of the whole
> business.  The Society could start a new title with the same board as
> the old one, but it will be many years before it is as valued  as the
> old one for promotion/tenure/assessment purposes. So it is a fight
> worth having.
>
> NOTE: I am not saying that this is a good thing, or that I love Impact
> Factors. Just noting the reality that the Impact Factor has a value in
> some circles that is not easily replicated.
>
> David
>
> David Groenewegen
> Director, Research Infrastructure
> Monash University Library
> Victoria, 3800
> AUSTRALIA
> [log in to unmask]
>
>
> On 18 March 2014 10:15, LIBLICENSE <[log in to unmask]> wrote:
>>
>>
>>  From: Sandy Thatcher <[log in to unmask]>
>>  Date: Sun, 16 Mar 2014 16:06:08 -0500
>>
>>  For those you can't access the article, this was my comment:
>>
>>  > Based on just the information provided here, it would seem that the Association would have the option of setting up a new journal under a different name, say, The Journal of the Social Science History Association, and continuing to publish just as it has in the past, but with a different publisher. The Association would apparently own the copyright in the content of all past issues, even if it couldn't publish new content in a journal called Social Science History. Duke U.P. would seemingly have the option of organizing a new editorial team to run its journal under that title, but one wonders who among social science history scholars would be willing to participate under such strained circumstances. To an outsider, this all seems like a tempest in a teapot, not worth the considerable legal fees it will take to settle.
>>
>>  Sandy Thatcher