[Taxacom] Max Planck Society cancels 1,200 Springer journals

[Donat Agosti]

Given that taxonomy papers do not yield high impact factors anyway, why do
we care about that and not, instead, urge our institutions to change their
assessment? Why aren't those institutions leading EOL, which has to be built
on open access to succeed, also changing their rule how to measure the
success of their staff? Harvard's or Smithsonian's stature certainly would
have an impact on other institutions. More importantly, if we stick to open
access - that includes also journals which do allow self archiving or the
so-called Green road to Open Access, then colleagues well beyond our one
little sphere of interests will use what we publish, because they actually
find it.

Within the few years of existence, the biology journals both in PLOS and
BioMedCentral have already a high impact factor, and within hybrid journals
with open access and pay-only access (eg PNAS), the citation of the open
access article is up to twice higher.

The forthcoming ZooBank will have a much higher impact, if we not only
register names, but at the same time make at least all the descriptions
accessible through ZooBank or other means which allow to find, harvest and
mine them.

Since the 250th anniversary of the 10th edition of Systema Naturae is next
year, we should honor it by agreeing that we only publish in journals which
allow either the Green or the Gold Road of Open Access. We as author do have
a real impact on this outcome.

Donat



-----Original Message-----
From: taxacom-bounces at mailman.nhm.ku.edu
[mailto:taxacom-bounces at mailman.nhm.ku.edu] On Behalf Of Richard Pyle
Sent: Tuesday, October 30, 2007 7:43 AM
To: 'taxacom'
Subject: Re: [Taxacom] Max Planck Society cancels 1,200 Springer journals

> Also I wonder, how the drive to Open Access will fit/collide 
> with the requirements of donors and universities to publish 
> in high impact factor journals. So if you publish open 
> access, then you impact factor will be low, and ... okay we 
> all know the rest.
> 
> is there an high impact factor Open Access journal?

Impact factor is ultimately determined by authors, not by publishers.  The
more good science we publish in open access journals, the more papers in
such journals will be cited, and the higher their impact factor will become.
Given that government funders are pushing more and more for open access
publishing, one can only hope that impact factors will shift accordingly.

Aloha,
Rich



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