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)