[Taxacom] Open review as a wiki

[Frank.Krell at dmns.org]

I would see it more moderate and just include the references for taxa we
cite the author AND date for. This is not necessary for all species in
faunal lists etc., but for taxa we deal with taxonomically. Editors
still tend to distinguish between a proper citation of a scientific
paper and the authority of a scientific name. Since the latter is only a
literature reference either, they should be treated equally.

The impact factor is a measurement of immediate journal citedness. It is
not applicable to single articles, to a discipline, or to single
researchers. What I care about is the number of citations a researcher
attracts. This is the measurement that is appropriate to apply to
individual researchers (be it as H-index or just a total number). The
H-index and the number overall citations increases if we treat
authorities of scientific names as proper references.

There is no hidden algorithm causing higher IF for journals with higher
number of authors per paper. These team disciplines are the modern,
fashionable sciences which a larger population of practicing scientists
= citing authors. Additionally more authors per paper means more authors
who can potentially cite the paper in the first two years after its
publication because they know and care about it in the short time period
relevant for the journal impact factor.

Frank


Dr Frank T. Krell 
Curator of Entomology 
Editor, Systematic Entomology 
Commissioner, International Commission on Zoological Nomenclature 
Department of Zoology 
Denver Museum of Nature & Science 
2001 Colorado Boulevard 
Denver, CO 80205-5798 USA 
Frank.Krell at dmns.org 
Phone: (+1) (303) 370-8244 
Fax: (+1) (303) 331-6492 
http://www.dmns.org/main/en/General/Science/ScientificExperts/Biographie
s/krellFrank.htm 





-----Original Message-----
From: taxacom-bounces at mailman.nhm.ku.edu
[mailto:taxacom-bounces at mailman.nhm.ku.edu] On Behalf Of Neal Evenhuis
Sent: Thursday, April 03, 2008 1:31 PM
To: Richard Pyle
Cc: TAXACOM at MAILMAN.NHM.KU.EDU
Subject: Re: [Taxacom] Open review as a wiki

At 1:15 AM -1000 4/3/08, Richard Pyle wrote:
>One very simple thing we can all do is include within the
bibliographies of
>our publications the full citations for the original descriptions of
all
>names included anywhere in the article (including genera).  It should
soon
>become easier and easier to track these citations down, as various
online
>resources get going (already is easy for those lucky groups with
roubust
>nomenclators).

If this is intended to help increase the Impact Factor for taxonomy, 
it is a futile exercise since the current IF algorithm only takes 
into account citations of papers published in the last two years (as 
has been pointed out previously on this list) and taxonomy regularly 
deals with taxa published decades and centuries old. Thus, giving the 
literature citation for every taxon cited in a paper will only be 
useful in increasing the IF (however slightly) if the original 
descriptions of those organisms were a couple of years old.

... and I'm not sure having a huge list of references would benefit 
us in the PR department either (e.g., proving to those who give 
taxonomy short shrift that we have an immense literature behind 
everything we do) when journals usually want to see a paper as 
concisely written as possible to save space, paper, costs, etc.

I have a hunch that there is a positive correlation with the higher 
the IF for a paper, the more authors on that particular paper. The 
ones I've seen that are high IF papers usually include all the lab 
techs, former major profs, janitors, etc. - it can get too silly 
(even for me). Maybe there is a bug (or hidden coefficient) in the 
algorithm that causes a high IF when the co-authors go over, say, 8 
in number. (I'll check on this) ....

-Neal

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