If you download Hartzing's Publish or Perish freeware off of the web, you can find several index scores for Urban Ecosystems. For example, the h-index of UE is currently 25. Then compare it to other journals. However, you are probably better to use an age-weighted citation index to compare it to other journals. I think it will be ok. I have been working to get ISI impact factor for Herpetological Conservation and Biology, but we are still waiting for ISI to give us the number although we HAVE passed all the criteria for ISI inclusion. You need to be aware of a few things regarding journal impact factors. (here is a link to the journal selection process: http://thomsonreuters.com/products_services/science/free/essays/journal_selection_process/)
1) When calculated, ISI only includes citations found in other journals with ISI impact factors. Hartzing's includes every journal that Google Scholar accesses. Lets just say that GS is WAY more inclusionary and WAY more accurate. 2) Journals that are not in English do not get included in Impact Factors and citations in non-english journals do not get included in impact factors. 3) There are no universal standards for assignment of impact factors. For example, ISI currently currently fast-tracks journals from the third world so they get inclusion in ISI before North American and UK journals. 4) Corporate journals use a strategy to increase their impact factors that puts them at an advantage against other journals. Say "Big Journal Co." has 200 journals. Then, they establish a new journal. So, they make sure that their new journal gets cited in many of their co-owned journals to spike the citation rating. Journals that are not owned by these corporations do not have this advantage. 5) ISI is a business venture owned by Thomson-Rueters, a for-profit publishing venture. Hartzing's is a not-for-profit venture with no ties to either other journal companies, etc. 6) Because of the computer model used by Hartzing's it occassionally messes up a citation. For example, I have an article that is listed twice because of a mis-citation in a journal. So, this article has been cited 12 times instead of 10. However, it has no affect on my personal h-score. Finally, it is probably better to use the citation rating of your own work, rather than the citation rating of the journal. This actually evaluate's your contribution to science. Both programs do it, but each has its attractions and detractions. I recommend that people use both metrics together to assess things, rather than sticking to one or the other. I used Hartzing's to caculate h-scores on 16 people that graduated within 5 years of when I did (2003) for obvious personal reasons! OF these, 10 had higher h-scores using Hartzing's, and two had higher scores using ISI. Those with higher scores in ISI had exceptionally low scores, more data will be needed to assess whether lower productivity influences ISI scores or not. Six of these had scores 1 point higher on hartzing's than ISI, three had scores 2 points higher on Hartzings, one had an h-score 3 points higher in Hartzings than in ISI. four had the same scores on both databases, two had scores that were one point lower on Hartzings than on ISI. The differences stem from the inclusion of journals in ISI and the access of the Google Scholar bot to websites. ISI leaves many journals off of its ledger for various reasons; however, why leave any off? Hartzing's attempts to include all journals with an online presence; however, some journals exclude google bots from their cite, or do not have articles online. Also, you need to go through the Hartzing's results to remove any inaccurate credits, but you cannot fix miscited papers. Back when Hartzing's was first released (5-10 years ago) ISI was way better. However, Hartzing's definitely evaluates individual author production way better than ISI at this time, IMO. Consider that one of the authors in my sample found her h-score rise from ISI = 1 to Hartzing's = 4, this is a huge difference in the authors graduating in the last 5-6 years because there is only a eight point spread among the 16 graduates in this sample (mean = 4.9 in Hartzing's, mean = 3.8 in ISI). I have a paper I am writing on this subject, and I'm only in the data collection and analysis phase, but I figured what the heck, I'll post some of the info. On Wed, Oct 28, 2009 at 7:27 AM, Hilit Finkler <[email protected]> wrote: > Hello dear list users, > Does anyone know the journal Urban ecosystems? > It still doesn't have an impact factor and i wanted to know if any of you > knows why. > > Thanks, > > -- > Hilit Finkler > PhD student > Zoology department > The George S. Wise Life sciences faculty > Tel Aviv University > Israel > -- Malcolm L. McCallum Associate Professor of Biology Managing Editor, Herpetological Conservation and Biology Texas A&M University-Texarkana Fall Teaching Schedule: Vertebrate Biology - TR 10-11:40; General Ecology - MW 1-2:40pm; Forensic Science - W 6-9:40pm Office Hourse- TBA 1880's: "There's lots of good fish in the sea" W.S. Gilbert 1990's: Many fish stocks depleted due to overfishing, habitat loss, and pollution. 2000: Marine reserves, ecosystem restoration, and pollution reduction MAY help restore populations. 2022: Soylent Green is People! Confidentiality Notice: This e-mail message, including any attachments, is for the sole use of the intended recipient(s) and may contain confidential and privileged information. Any unauthorized review, use, disclosure or distribution is prohibited. If you are not the intended recipient, please contact the sender by reply e-mail and destroy all copies of the original message.
