> > Well, it is clear from this comment that in different fields there are > different rules... . In macromolecular Xtallolgraphy, where some people deal > with biologists from biomedical sciences, the impact of journals is an > important aspect during evaluation and, unfortunately, pre-publication review > of structures has no actual value in their field. For a structural BIO-logist > in biomedical sciences, a paper it is not "just a paper", it is an effort of > years reduced to a (or few) paper(s). The non-structural BIO-people > understand what is a Cell paper, but not at all about what it is a > pre-publication of a structure. My thougts go in the direction of grant > applications, fellowships, promotion, all filtered by the impact factor but > not by pre-publication of structures which, btw, it is neither considered in > the h-index of a researcher. >
Oh what the hell, someone else poured the gasoline, I may as well supply a lit match: What Maria says is absolutely true--I dwell among biologists, so I fully understand the rules of the field. But it's not so clear that these rules are good ones. Biology is obsessed with high impact, and I argue science is ill served by this preoccupation. The highest impact-factor journals seem to have the highest number of retractions (see this past Tuesday's New York Times Science section for a discussion). And in this forum it's certainly germane to note that the technical quality of published structures is, on average, poorer in the highest impact journals (at least by some criteria; see the paper from Brown & Ramaswamy in Acta Crystallogr D63: 941-50 (2007)). Pat --------------------------------------------------------------------------------------- Patrick J. Loll, Ph. D. Professor of Biochemistry & Molecular Biology Director, Biochemistry Graduate Program Drexel University College of Medicine Room 10-102 New College Building 245 N. 15th St., Mailstop 497 Philadelphia, PA 19102-1192 USA (215) 762-7706 pat.l...@drexelmed.edu
