[Open-access] more open access particle physics

Tue Sep 25 12:28:01 UTC 2012

I do of course understand that Nuclear Physics B has a higher Journal
Impact Factor than Acta Physica Polonica B. And so I appreciate Mike's
points and am looking forward to your blog post on this.

BUT, subtly, it doesn't actually answer the question I asked:

*Does Nuclear Physics B really provide >3 times more added value than
a publication in Acta Physica Polonica B?*

The Journal Impact Factor is something unrelated to the intrinsic value of
the services provided by the publishers: copyediting, arranging peer
review, providing typeset HTML, PDF & dead-tree versions. The quality of
work provided by the authors is what generates citations, that drive the
calculation of the JIF. This is NOTHING to do with the publishers and their
vessels for articles (journals), except for the self-reinforcement effect
of articles appearing in high JIF journals, that are *perceived* justly (or
not) to be better to cite than articles in lower JIF journals.

If judging solely on what the publisher adds to the value of the author
submitted works, are the services provided by Nuclear Physics B really
worth >3 times more than that of Acta Physica Polonica B?

I have had a look at articles from both their websites. I encourage others
to do so too. I DO NOT think Nuclear Physics B looks like it is worth >3
times more than Acta Physica Polonica B.

I appreciate the careerism involved and it's supposed reliance on Journal
Impact Factor, but according to this recent Nature piece (
http://www.nature.com/nature/journal/v489/n7415/full/489177a.html) that may
not be as true as many academics think it is.

Let's not make the excuses for people. This list is here to ask the tough
questions :)

Ross

On Tue, Sep 25, 2012 at 1:10 PM, Mike Taylor <mike at indexdata.com> wrote:

> On 25 September 2012 13:06, Ross Mounce <ross.mounce at gmail.com> wrote:
> > If they are publishing the same product (copyedited, peer-review
> > arrangement, PDF , HTML and dead-tree versions) why have they negotiated
> > different prices with different publishers?
> >
> > Why does Jagiellonian University only charge $650 for Acta Physica
> Polonica
> > B
> > whilst Elsevier's Nuclear Physics B gets to charge $2000
> >
> > Does Nuclear Physics B really provide >3 times more added value than a
> > publication in Acta Physica Polonica B?
>
> Impact factors.
>
> > N.B. Don't even think about referring to journal impact factors if you
> want
> > to answer that question!
>
> Sorry, but we both know it's the truth. It's a stupid truth, but a
> true one nevertheless.
>
> > If the SCOAP3 community is so well organised and publishes in so few
> > journals, why does it need more expensive journals? Why can't they just
> > expand the editorial board and publish everything in Acta Physica
> Polonica B
> > and spend the leftover money on something better than giving more profit
> to
> > commercial publishers like Elsevier and Springer?
>
> A practical reason is that the high-energy particle physics community
> is not hermetically sealed off from the rest of the world. Often a HEP
> physicist will be in competition with a physicist from a different
> field for the same job or grant. So rightly or wrongly HEP physicists
> continue to feel the pressure to publish in the fashionable journals.
>
> > Journals are just vessels for containing research. It doesn't matter if
> > research is published across 1000 or just 2 or 3 'journals'. As long as
> we
> > have appropriate filtering tools (which I think we do have), then we
> should
> > be able to find the research we need.
>
> Yes; but you are thinking about science. Most people also think about
> their careers.
>
> (Much, much more on this dichortomy coming soon on SV-POW!, by the way.)
>
> -- Mike.
>

-- 
-- 
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Ross Mounce
PhD Student & Panton Fellow
Fossils, Phylogeny and Macroevolution Research Group
University of Bath, 4 South Building, Lab 1.07
http://about.me/rossmounce
-/-/-/-/-/-/-/-/-/-/-/-/-/-/-/-/-/-/-/-/-/-/-/-/-
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