Journals & Magazines

Lee Hadden writes: \"In a letter to Nature in the June 27, 2002 issue, is a discussion about the impact factor in Spanish scientific publications.

See: \"Impact-factor rewards affect Spanish research
\", the print copy of Nature 417, 898 (2002) or at: Nature.com (subscription required).\"

In Spain, as in Finland, publication of research reports in journals with a high impact factor has since 1989 officially been part of the national system for evaluating researchers\' productivity. But unlike the Finnish system, the Spanish system rewards individuals rather than departments or institutions.

As stated in the Spanish parliamentary record, a bonus is awarded only for \"those articles of scientific worth in journals of recognized prestige in the field. As a quality indicator, the relevance of the medium of dissemination in which each article was published shall be considered. In those disciplines for which international systems of quality of publications exist, reliance on these systems shall be obligatory.\"

Peter Suber, curator of the Free Online Scholarship Blog weighs in on this much-debated issue:

None of the advantages of traditional scientific journals need be sacrificed in order to provide free online access to scientific journal articles. Objections that open access to scientific journal literature requires the sacrifice of peer-review, revenue, copyright protection, or
other strengths of traditional journals, are based on misunderstandings.

Full Article from BioMed Central\'s new Journal of Biology, which \"aims to publish outstanding research articles from all areas of biology and make them immediately accessible to all, free of charge.\"

Lee Hadden Writes: \" To help bridge the gap between the richest and poorest nations, some
attempt is being made to make scientific information available through
libraries in the poorest countries.
See the article in: Nature 417, 365 (2002);
From 24 May, Nature and all other journals published by the Nature
Publishing Group will become available through the HINARI scheme. That,
coupled with the SciDev.Net free-access website that was spun off from
Nature last year (see scidev.net), is one step towards the goals
outlined by Sachs\' committee.

Read more about it at: nature.com (Subscription required).\"

Chronicle.com is Reporting Few of the 30,000 scientists who pledged to boycott journals that don\'t make their content free online after six months have actually followed through on that threat, and few journals have changed their ways.

\"Perhaps we were being a little naive\" in thinking that publishers would change their policies because of the boycott, says Mr. Eisen. \"In reality, very few publishers responded.\"