Re: science_publishers

[Ronnie Brown <ronnie.profbrown@btinternet.com>]

A further complication is the role of Thomsons Reuters ISI, since some
countries will consider a journal as worth rating for research
assessment if and only if it is listed by ISI.  I believe Thomsons
Reuters is doing very well out of ISI.

In 2003 I did a small survey of editors of small journals from an EMS
list, and they were either ignorant of ISI or antipathetic to the
procedures of the so called `journal assessment'. Usually , requests to
be considered seemed to go into a blank hole.

I was considering a letter to the AMS Newsletter, but in the end decided
to fight for my own corner.  and so  wrote to  Dr James Testa of ISI,
saying that the lack of listing of TAC, JHRS and Cahiers failed to
recognise the importance of thse journals for category theory, and that
editors found the ISI procedures impenetrable and were bitter about
this.  I got a nice letter back, and a new letter from Mr Rodney Chonka,
which has led to the listing of TAC.

Mr Chonka is a  wide ranging editor for ISI, but his qualifications are
unknown.  I felt this contrasted with the well publicised academic
reputations of editors of journals which were being refused listing.

Ronnie Brown

Extract from my letter of 19 Nov 2009.

"By relying on `impact factor' there is no allowance for the slow
acceptance of new ideas, and it seems certain that the use of the ISI
methodology is a brake on scientific progress, and of the development
and influence of new ideas.

This is certainly true in category theory, an area developed in the
second half of the last century, has had  a major influence in unifying
mathematics, and has  developed new methods particularly in higher
dimensional algebra. "


On 01/09/2011 19:55, Steve Vickers wrote:
> I'd like to mention "Journal of Logic and Analysis", free and
> efficiently run by Nigel Cutland at York. It includes good articles
> in that awkward area of non-classical approaches to analysis.
>
> It has published an article of mine and it seemed the right place,
> but should I recommend it to younger researchers?
>
> Steve Vickers.
>

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