From: John Sack <[log in to unmask]> Date: Wed15 Oct 2014 15:56:35 -0700 (I am submitting this reply on behalf of Anurag Acharya - John Sack ) Joseph Esposito writes: >Not persuasive. The number of articles continues to grow, the number >of slots in the so-called elite journals is pretty much constant. ANURAG: Let me try again. As mentioned in the abstract and in the methods section, we picked a fixed & relatively low number of top-cited articles -- 1000 per category. The top 10 journals in a category, as a group, publish more than 1000 articles a year. So, it is not a matter of the size of the pot growing and the top-cited journals not growing. Rather, there are a fixed number of slots every year in each category and more of the slots each year are now being filled by articles published in non-elite journals. I would also like to point out that the results indicate that the elite journals still publish a substantial fraction of high-impact articles. They are still elite. But there is a clear and significant shift in the distribution and it occurs across a diverse range of research fields. cheers, anurag On Tue, Oct 14, 2014 at 3:34 PM, LIBLICENSE <[log in to unmask]> wrote: > > From: Joseph Esposito <[log in to unmask]> > Date: Mon, 13 Oct 2014 21:18:06 -0400 > > Not persuasive. The number of articles continues to grow, the number > of slots in the so-called elite journals is pretty much constant. If > all the seats are taken at Harvard, Princeton, and Yale, do we expect > parents to tell their kids not to go to college at all? Would we > expect that someone who attends the U. of Michigan or Villanova has no > economic contribution to make? The question about this article is why > anyone thinks it is newsworthy. Where was it published again? > > Joe Esposito > > On Mon, Oct 13, 2014 at 8:17 PM, LIBLICENSE <[log in to unmask]> wrote: > > > > From: John Sack <[log in to unmask]> > > Date: Mon, 13 Oct 2014 05:49:53 -0700 > > > > I am forwarding this response on behalf of Anurag Acharya at Google > > > > John Sack > > Founding Director > > HighWire Press > > > > ----- > > > > I would like to clarify couple of things about our paper. My comments > > are inline below, > > > > cheers, > > anurag > > > > Corey Murata writes: > > > > The basic flaw in the research is centered around how they identify > > 'elite journals.' > > > > First, they are using incredibly broad disciplinary groupings from > > Google Scholar Metrics: > > > > http://scholar.google.com/citations?view_op=top_venues > > > > Economics, for example is lumped in with Business and Management, and > > if you look at the top ten journals in that broad group the only > > management journal is MIS Quarterly, all the rest are Economics and > > Finance. > > > > [[ANURAG]] As described in the Methods section of the paper, elite > > journals are identified for each of the 261 specific subject > > categories (eg Immunology or Accounting & Taxation or Gender Studies > > or Finance) and NOT at the level of broad areas (eg Health & Medical > > Sciences or Business, Economics & Management). > > > > To get an overview of changes within each broad area, we determined > > the median, the 25th, and the 75th percentile subject categories > > within each area. We then picked the median subject category in each > > broad area as the representative for the area and plotted data for all > > three of median/25th-percentile/75th-percentile categories in the > > per-area graphs in Figure 2. The median/25th/75th percentile > > categories were computed afresh for every year to ensure that they > > remain representative of the area (details are in the Methods > > section). > > > > Second, they ignore the increase in the number and specialization of > > journals over the period of the study. This increasing availability of > > journals that are 'core' to a sub-disciplinary group of scholars would > > naturally lead to more high-quality articles being published outside > > of the 'elite' journals as defined by the authors of this paper. The > > increasing number of journals also means that the ten 'elite' journals > > becomes a progressively smaller percentage of the total scholarly > > output over time. > > > > [[ANURAG]] As mentioned above, the list of elite journals was computed > > separately for each of the 261 specific subject categories. Which > > means there are over 2500 journals that are considered elite each > > year. As mentioned in the Methods section, the list of elite (and > > non-elite) journals for each subject category was recomputed for each > > year. So shifts in the focus of a subject category or new journals > > that become a part of the "core" set would be reflected. > > > > The Methods section of the paper also mentions that the number of > > articles considered top-cited each year in a subject category was > > fixed at 1000. Therefore, growth in the total number of articles > > published isn't a significant factor. The top ten journals in a > > subject category, as a group, publish more than 1000 articles per > > year.