Re: Open access and impact factor

[jcg <jean.claude.guedon@umontreal.ca>]

Rick Anderson's question is interesting even though it demonstrates some
attachment to the concept of an absolute scale of value.

However, let us add the following question : let us assume that two
articles are of equal quality - leaving aside for the moment the question
of how it can be ascertained in the absolute - but one is published in
Nature while the other lands in a ho-hum journal. Wouldn't we expect the
article in Nature to enjoy a higher impact than the other article?

Of course, we would.

If this is correct, this shows that Nature acts as an impact factor
amplifier, independently of the intrinsic quality of the article under
consideration.  That is after all the reason why scientists try so hard to
publish in Nature.

If open access articles, by virtue of their being in open access, start
demonstrating higher impact as a general rule, this amounts to having
discovered an even better impact amplifier than prestigious journals. And
that is precisely both the hope and the claim of many supporters of open
access.

And to return to the initial comment about absolute value, impact factors
are a way of assessing that value. it is not a very accurate way, although
it appears precise. In any case, it should not be confused with the value
itself.

I hope I have not made things too complicated by now... :-)

Best,

Jean-Claude Gu�don 


On March 9, 2004 05:47 pm, Rick Anderson wrote:

> Every time someone uses "enhanced impact factor" as an argument for open
> access, a tiny little bell goes off in the back of my head, and this
> morning I finally figured out why.  Stop me if this is a naive question or
> if I'm fundamentally misunderstanding the argument, but it seems to me
> that the purpose of impact factor data is to measure the importance of one
> article relative to others.  If the article's impact factor is enhanced by
> its free availability to the public (rather than by its intrinsic merits
> or its impact on the thinking and research of others), then isn't open
> access simply making the impact-factor data less meaningful?
>
> In other words, given two articles of equal merit and potential influence,
> one of which is freely available to the public and the other of which is
> only available to those who pay, wouldn't we expect that the impact of the
> former would be higher than that of the latter?  And if so, how is the
> difference between those two impact factors meaningful or useful?
>
> -------------
> Rick Anderson
> rickand@unr.edu