RE: Open access and impact factor

["D Anderson" <dh-anderson@corhealth.com>]

"Impact" is a complicated concept. There's lots of free information on the
Web that has little impact. On the other hand, some prestigious journals
have limited circulation but a large impact.

To a large extent, impact depends on the work of the publishing staff.
Impact results from the editorial quality of the content, the caliber of
the contributors, the selection of articles, the long-term reputation of
the journal and the journal's staff, and the amount of effort and
resources the journal puts in to get significant articles into the public
spotlight.

For example, top journals employ media relations professionals to ensure
that they get appropriate press coverage. They also provide complimentary
subscriptions to people with significant influence in their fields. And
editorial staffers stay in frequent contact with key stakeholders.

Dean H. Anderson
Publisher
COR Health
Insight ... not just news
http://www.corhealth.com

-----Original Message-----
From: owner-liblicense-l@lists.yale.edu
[mailto:owner-liblicense-l@lists.yale.edu]On Behalf Of Rick Anderson
Sent: Tuesday, March 09, 2004 2:48 PM
To: Liblicense-L@Lists. Yale. Edu
Subject: Open access and impact factor

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