Dana,
It would be so sad if you accept that there is a sizeable body of literature
that might be directly related to your research but that you decide not to read
it because you can't read it all *and* base your selection of what to read on
crude criteria not relating to the merits of the individual article. If you
take a look at the skewed nature of citation frequency of articles in any
journal and realize that there even is a positive correlation between impact
factors and retractions in the end you should realize that making a distinction
in such a crude way is not desirable. That would mean that overall scholarly
publishing is not functioning anymore, and that it serves more to advance
careers than to advance science. I do not want to accept that: it would be such
a waste of talent, money, time etc. and endanger public support and financing
of science.
Some suggestions to alleviate this:
- make peer review open (that can still be anonymous if you wish)
- experiment with and invest in post-pub peer review (e.g. PubMed Commons)
- use recommendation systems such as F1000
- next to TOC alerts, also use keyword and citation alerts from Scopus, WoS and
other AI services (e.g. Keep Me Posted alerts in SciFinder)
- share the burden of current awareness in a research team
- glance over comments, article level metrics and altmetrics links
And yes, I do intend to remain realistic: if you have given several articles
from a new journal, a non IF-journal, a non US/European, an Open Access journal
a chance and they proved to be total rubbish it is completely logical that you
will be less inclined to read more papers from that journal. But over time, and
especially if an article is exactly on topic, I would advise to give it another
chance.
But let's return to the topic of this list: do you know of anybody in your
institution that has been fooled by a real scam journal? I always ask our
faculty but have not yet come across any such person. Almost all have received
soliciting emails, but just tossed them aside. Every once in a while faculty
approach us with the request to profile a certain journal that they haven't
heard about before. That is no big deal. So yes, it is a relatively minor
annoyance, something that worries me much less than the peer review crisis.
Best,
Jeroen Bosman
Utrecht University Library
-Original Message-
From: goal-boun...@eprints.org [mailto:goal-boun...@eprints.org] On Behalf Of
Dana Roth
Sent: donderdag 25 september 2014 5:55
To: Global Open Access List (Successor of AmSci)
Subject: [GOAL] Re: Interesting Current Science opinion paper on Predatory
Journals
I agree with Chuck ... and feel it is totally unrealistic to assume serious
researchers have the time to wade thru anything more than a fraction of what is
being published. Is there really anything better than limiting current
awareness to high quality peer reviewed journals, and SciFinder, etc. for
retrospective searching for very specific information or review articles?
Dana L. Roth
Millikan Library / Caltech 1-32
1200 E. California Blvd. Pasadena, CA 91125
626-395-6423 fax 626-792-7540
dzr...@library.caltech.edu
http://library.caltech.edu/collections/chemistry.htm
From: goal-boun...@eprints.org [goal-boun...@eprints.org] on behalf of David
Prosser [david.pros...@rluk.ac.uk]
Sent: Wednesday, September 24, 2014 9:05 AM
To: Global Open Access List (Successor of AmSci)
Cc: Siler, Elizabeth; Tokoro, Shoko; Hoon, Peggy
Subject: [GOAL] Re: Interesting Current Science opinion paper on
Predatory Journals
I think that every article should be read on it's own merits and it should not
have value assigned to it just because it has managed to get into a certain
club (journal). It is saddening to me that this suggestion should be
considered even vaguely radical.
When Science carried out its 'Sting' on open access titles there were journals
on Beall's list that rejected the paper. Other not on his list (including one
published under the auspices of Elsevier ) accepted it. I'm all for context,
but if we are considering a researcher's future and funding surely we owe it to
them to judge them on their own merits and not on the arbitrary criteria of one
chap in Colorado.
David
On 24 Sep 2014, at 10:40, Hamaker, Charles
caham...@uncc.edumailto:caham...@uncc.edu wrote:
So every article from every journal should be read under the assumption that
peer review markers are a poor way to make a preliminary decision point as to
whether the article merits attention?
It's going to be difficult to assume every one is expert enough to judge every
paper they read solely on the content absent context of labeling or assumption
of basic peer review.
Journal labels provide a context. Are we to ignore that?
Doesn't that make introduction to a literature for novices or the task of
anyone reading outside the narrow boundaries of their discipline almost
