From: <[log in to unmask]> Date: Fri, 17 Oct 2014 08:41:50 +0100 Following from Anthony's comments, its also not necessarily an either/or decision, whether to publish in an elite or a niche journal. Plenty of research projects consist of several parts, some authors publish bits in more specialised, lower-impact journals, perhaps precisely in order to get the feedback they want, or perhaps because a wider audience might not be interested in the level of detail of a particular part of the research; and then publish an overview of the whole project in a broader-based, higher impact journal. That strategy gives them the best of both worlds: sharing with and learning from their own community, and brownie points for a high IF publication too. Bill Hughes ----- Original Message ----- From: "LIBLICENSE" <[log in to unmask]> To: <[log in to unmask]> Sent: Friday, October 17, 2014 12:44 AM Subject: Re: Growing Impact of Non-Elite Journals > From: Anthony Watkinson <[log in to unmask]> > Date: Thu, 16 Oct 2014 10:36:28 +0100 > > I do completely agree with Bill. As I see it, researchers have a > complex hierarchy of journals. Almost all in science would place > Science or Nature at the top. However below that there is a hierarchy > in their own discipline, which is not just a matter of the impact > factor but is a more complex judgement passed down from mentor to > mentor. Sometimes work being reported on is perceived as of wider > interest - to the whole scientific community even - or to the whole > discipline. > > Sometimes work being reported is more specialised and is of interest > (only) to a niche community with its own journal. The research is not > necessarily inferior (look at the work on transposons which led > eventually to a Nobel prize) but sometimes it is not actually very > good and one knows it. There are special complications with > interdisciplinary work. If two groups, one in physics and one in > clinical medicine, are writing a paper together the physics component > will be trusted by the clinicians with submitting to an appropriate > physics journal and vice versa. I know there is a lot of literature > about how groups work but I am not sure how much research there is on > how groups decide where to submit and why. I am sure there is some > literature but I have not time to look for it. > > I am writing here as a researcher as well as a former publisher and am > familiar with behaviour Bill and I describe from both standpoints. > > Anthony > > -----Original Message----- > From: <[log in to unmask]> > Date: Wed, 15 Oct 2014 08:37:31 +0100 > > As well as the slots in elite journals being constant, this story > seems to me not to be news because it just reflects longstanding > researcher behaviour: as well as wanting to publish in elite > journals, a lot of researchers also want to engage with the (often > tiny) community that is specifically interested in their own topic, a > community which can offer advice, criticism, avenues for further > research, collaboration etc etc. So they also publish in what they > regard as the most appropriate journal, elite or not. Of course anyone > working in acoustics, say, wants the prestige of being published in > the Journal of the Acoustical Society of America; but, if his > particular field is building acoustics, and if feedback is one of the > things he is looking for, s/he won't get much from that journal whose > content is mostly concerned with speech, hearing, pyschological > aspects, animal noise etc, presumably reflecting readership interest. > > Bill Hughes > Director > Multi-Science Publishing Co Ltd > > > ----- Original Message ----- > >> 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.