[Taxacom] Fwd: Zootaxa taken off of JCR

Fri Jul 3 11:56:28 CDT 2020

On 03-Jul.-20 12:22 p.m., ANTONIO GARCIA VALDECASAS HUELIN via Taxacom 
wrote:

>   It seems to me that any relation of Citation Index  with Taxonomy is being detrimental and, at times, offensive.

* well, this is a song we've heard sung since these 
Committees-don't-need-to-understand-the-papers Indices first began to be 
published. Now that names are being registered, it would seem just a 
matter of programming to create indices of 1) taxonomic/nomenclatoral 
activity of authours, and 2) of the usefulness of journals to taxonomy. 
The first could be a somehow-weighted count of the number of 
descriptions or changes in status proposed, and the other the percentage 
of papers in the journal which contain taxonomic actions.

This would mean that taxonomists would have an independent index to cite 
in situations of hiring or promotion, rather than suffering from the low 
status which citation-counting accords to papers of long-term significance.

not that I have any experience with being hired or promoted,

fred
=======================================================

> Doug Yanega via Taxacom <taxacom at mailman.nhm.ku.edu> escribió:
> 
>> Some (many?) of you may have heard that some major taxonomic journals, 
>> including Zootaxa and the International Journal of Systematic and 
>> Evolutionary Microbiology, have just been removed entirely from Impact 
>> Factor indexing, jeopardizing the future of taxonomic research by 
>> penalizing taxonomists who choose and have chosen to publish in these 
>> or other suppressed journals.
>>
>> For those who find this a significant concern, I am sharing below a 
>> message from Frank-Thorsten Krell, a fellow ICZN Commissioner, which 
>> gives some useful background and relevant links. I have the sense, 
>> likely shared by others, that this may be a /fait accompli/, a 
>> decision not subject to review or reversal, but *maybe* there are some 
>> human beings involved in this decision who can be contacted and 
>> persuaded to reconsider. Some of the information Frank presents below 
>> may be helpful in making the case.
>>
>> -------- Forwarded Message --------
>> Subject:         Zootaxa taken off of JCR
>> Date:         Fri, 3 Jul 2020 05:33:35 +0000
>> From:         Frank T. Krell <Frank.Krell at dmns.org>
>> To:         (recipient list suppressed)
>>
>> I have written about impact factor suppression six years ago: 
>> https://www.researchgate.net/publication/270396659_Losing_the_numbers_game_abundant_journal_self-citations_put_journals_at_risk_for_a_life_without_Impact_Factor 
>> Abstract:  “To counteract impact factor manipulations by editors, in 
>> 2008 Thomson Reuters started suppressing journals with abundant 
>> self-citations and excluding them from the Journal Citation Reports® 
>> for two years. The number of banned journals rose from 9 in 2007 to 66 
>> in 2012. Abundant journal self-citations can be due to the nature of 
>> the journal or unethical strategies of editors, such as coercive 
>> citations or citation cartels. Regardless of whether unethical 
>> behaviour was involved, journals with excessive self-citations are 
>> suppressed by Thomson Reuters. While unethical behaviour should be 
>> discouraged, depriving the accused journals of the benefit of the 
>> doubt can lead to unfair treatment.”
>>
>> Now Zootaxa, but also the International Journal of Systematic and 
>> Evolutionary Microbiology, the official journal of record for new 
>> microbial taxa, fell into that trap.
>>
>> Yesterday I submitted a Correspondence to Nature about that (which 
>> will be rejected in about 15 days – or not):
>>
>> “Impact Factor—Taxonomy cannot win
>>
>> Twenty years ago, I laid out why Impact Factors don’t work as 
>> performance indicators for taxonomic research (Nature *405*, 507–508; 
>> 2000; *415*, 957; 2002), referring to the lack of core-journals as one 
>> of the reasons. While taxonomical publishing is still extremely 
>> fragmented, more than most other fields, there are examples of 
>> successful consolidation. One is /Zootaxa/, a mega-journal that 
>> meanwhile publishes about 25% of all new zoological species and other 
>> taxa (Z.-Q. Zhang, /Zootaxa/ *4000*, 596–600; 2015). Another example 
>> is the /International Journal of Systematic and Evolutionary 
>> Microbiology/, the official journal of record for new microbial taxa. 
>> According to the /International Code of Nomenclature of Prokaryotes/, 
>> all new prokaryote names have to be published or get validated in this 
>> one journal (C.T. Parker /et al./, /Int. J. Syst. Evol. Microb./ *69*, 
>> S1–S111; 2019). Now Clarivate Plc, the owner of the Journal Impact 
>> Factor, has revoked the 2019 Impact Factors for both those and 31 
>> other journals because of their high rate of journal self-citations 
>> (https://retractionwatch.com/wp-content/uploads/2020/06/Title-Suppress-2.pdf). 
>> Revoking Journal Impact Factors has been a means to fight attempts of 
>> citation manipulations by journals since 2008 (F.-T. Krell, /Eur. Sci. 
>> Ed./ *40*, 36–38; 2014). However, in journals dominating a field or 
>> being a mandatory outlet, such high rates are expected and 
>> unavoidable, and not necessarily indicating a manipulative strategy. 
>> Depriving leading taxonomic journals of their Journal Impact Factors 
>> can have devastating effects on the evaluation of taxonomists and on 
>> taxonomy as a whole, as long as this metric is still used as a 
>> performance indicator for publishing scientists.
>>
>> *Frank-T. Krell *Denver Museum of Nature & Science, Denver, USA.
>>
>> frank.krell at dmns.org <mailto:frank.krell at dmns.org>”[1]
>>
>> Here are the links to the referenced Nature correspondences:
>>
>> https://www.researchgate.net/publication/12467244_Impact_factors_aren%27t_relevant_to_taxonomy 
>> https://www.researchgate.net/publication/11486254_Why_impact_factors_don%27t_work_for_taxonomy 
>> This action of Clarivate can have extremely negative consequences for 
>> taxonomists evaluated by Impact Factor-counters. It can have negative 
>> consequences for Zootaxa. It can even have negative consequences for 
>> taxonomy as a whole as one of the most prominent taxonomic outlets is 
>> now no longer an option for many academic taxonomists. Very bad and 
>> annoying.
>>
>> I see little hope that academic administrators around the world will 
>> suddenly become educated and understand the shortcomings of the 
>> Journal Impact Factor. I would guess that the Impact Factor is here to 
>> stay and will be senselessly applied to evaluate scientists. Oh, I 
>> wrote about that, too:
>>
>> https://www.researchgate.net/publication/267329241_The_Journal_Impact_Factor_as_a_performance_indicator 
>> This only for people who want to know more about the Impact Factor game.
>>
>> We need to consider how taxonomy and success of taxonomists are 
>> evaluated and measured in academia. Publications are key. For our long 
>> term strategy, we need to avoid all unintended consequences that 
>> further harm the taxonomic enterprise (additionally to lack of 
>> funding, increasing, often lethal red tape, lack of career 
>> opportunities for new blood, etc. etc.).
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