From: Sandy Thatcher <[log in to unmask]>
Date: Fri, 10 Oct 2014 00:17:39 -0500

There can be a difference between being cited and being "well
regarded." It does not necessarily follow that a frequently cited
article is also a highly regarded article; it simply could be an
article that puts forth a controversial thesis, provoking many people
to cite it in offering counter-arguments. So the fundamental logic of
this article seems flawed.

Sandy Thatcher



> From: Ann Shumelda Okerson <[log in to unmask]>
> Date: Thu, 9 Oct 2014 20:27:07 -0400
>
> Via InfoDocket:
>
> A study by the Google Scholar team on the rise in importance of
> non-elite journals has been deposited in arXiv.  The abstract is
> reproduced below.  Any thoughts about the validity of the findings?
> Do they take into account the overall growth of article publishing in
> the time frame examined?   What's really going on here?  Ann
>
> *******
>
> http://www.infodocket.com/2014/10/08/new-research-from-google-rise-of-the-rest-the-growing-impact-of-non-elite-journals/
>
> In this paper, we examine the evolution of the impact of non-elite
> journals. We attempt to answer two questions. First, what fraction of
> the top-cited articles are published in non-elite journals and how has
> this changed over time. Second, what fraction of the total citations
> are to non-elite journals and how has this changed over time.
>
> We studied citations to articles published in 1995-2013. We computed
> the 10 most-cited journals and the 1000 most-cited articles each year
> for all 261 subject categories in Scholar Metrics. We marked the 10
> most-cited journals in a category as the elite journals for the
> category and the rest as non-elite.
>
> There are two conclusions from our study. First, the fraction of
> top-cited articles published in non-elite journals increased steadily
> over 1995-2013. While the elite journals still publish a substantial
> fraction of high-impact articles, many more authors of well-regarded
> papers in diverse research fields are choosing other venues.
>
> The number of top-1000 papers published in non-elite journals for the
> representative subject category went from 149 in 1995 to 245 in 2013,
> a growth of 64%. Looking at broad research areas, 4 out of 9 areas saw
> at least one-third of the top-cited articles published in non-elite
> journals in 2013. For 6 out of 9 areas, the fraction of top-cited
> papers published in non-elite journals for the representative subject
> category grew by 45% or more.
>
> Second, now that finding and reading relevant articles in non-elite
> journals is about as easy as finding and reading articles in elite
> journals, researchers are increasingly building on and citing work
> published everywhere. Considering citations to all articles, the
> percentage of citations to articles in non-elite journals went from
> 27% in 1995 to 47% in 2013. Six out of nine broad areas had at least
> 50% of citations going to articles published in non-elite journals in
> 2013.



--
Sanford G. Thatcher
8201 Edgewater Drive
Frisco, TX  75034-5514
e-mail: [log in to unmask]
Phone: (214) 705-1939
Website: https://scholarsphere.psu.edu/?f[desc_metadata__creator_sim][]=Sanford+G.+Thatcher
Facebook: http://www.facebook.com/sanford.thatcher

"If a book is worth reading, it is worth buying."-John Ruskin (1865)

"The reason why so few good books are written is that so few people
who can write know anything."-Walter Bagehot (1853)