From mboxrd@z Thu Jan 1 00:00:00 1970 X-Msuck: nntp://news.gmane.io/gmane.science.mathematics.categories/4728 Path: news.gmane.org!not-for-mail From: Joachim Kock Newsgroups: gmane.science.mathematics.categories Subject: Re: Science Citation Index Date: Fri, 05 Dec 2008 11:28:22 +0100 Message-ID: Reply-To: Joachim Kock NNTP-Posting-Host: main.gmane.org Mime-Version: 1.0 Content-Type: text/plain; charset=iso-8859-1 Content-Transfer-Encoding: quoted-printable X-Trace: ger.gmane.org 1241020134 14572 80.91.229.2 (29 Apr 2009 15:48:54 GMT) X-Complaints-To: usenet@ger.gmane.org NNTP-Posting-Date: Wed, 29 Apr 2009 15:48:54 +0000 (UTC) To: categories@mta.ca Original-X-From: rrosebru@mta.ca Fri Dec 5 09:51:53 2008 -0400 Return-path: Envelope-to: categories-list@mta.ca Delivery-date: Fri, 05 Dec 2008 09:51:53 -0400 Original-Received: from Majordom by mailserv.mta.ca with local (Exim 4.61) (envelope-from ) id 1L8b0u-000546-RW for categories-list@mta.ca; Fri, 05 Dec 2008 09:46:36 -0400 Original-Sender: categories@mta.ca Precedence: bulk X-Keywords: X-UID: 32 Original-Lines: 65 Xref: news.gmane.org gmane.science.mathematics.categories:4728 Archived-At: Hello category theorists, just to report that in Spain, Thomson's Science Citation Index is now the main measure of quality of publication in mathematics: every report and application has to indicate impact factor(*) and citation count(**) o= f=20 all one's papers -- and papers in journals not indexed (or in conference proceedings) simply don't count as papers! As a concrete example, I received last year an evalutation from the Ministry of Science and Education explicitly telling me that I need to improve the number of papers published in indexed journals. (*) Impact factor is really a silly measure for quality: for example many learned societies distribute papers into several different journals only according to length but using otherwise the same criteria for acceptance, whereas those different journals can have very different impact factors in Thomson's index. (It may interest some of you that the Elsevier journal CHAOS SOLITONS & FRACTALS edited by El Naschie has a= =20 higher impact factor than Annals of Mathematics.) (**) Of course the citation count is Thomson's count, which counts only citations from Thomson indexed papers, and even fails to identify preprint citations to papers later indexed. (E.g. paper A cites preprint B. When B is published in an indexed journal the citation from A does not count.) It has a very bad effect, especially on young researchers, who have to follow the rules of Thomson's and Ministry's game, and look up impact factors before choosing which journal to submit to, instead of following scientific criteria. Furthermore, access to Thomson's database is not free. (The Spanish Ministry has paid access for all Spanish universities, instead of using that money to fund research.) It is more than likely that Thomson is affiliated in some way with Elsevier and other publishing houses -- in any case they share the same goals of extracting money from science budgets -- and therefore free journals represent a threat, and it is not very likely that any free electronical journal will be included in Thomson's index. It did happen with 'Geometry & Topology', though... I agree with George that it is important to get TAC and Cahiers into the AMS citation database. This should be possible just by scientific reasons. Before that happens I think there is not much hope to enter Thomson's index... The real problem is to convince science foundations and other funding agencies to boycott Thomson. Just getting more and more good journals into Thomson's index is not going to help with that :-( Gettting the categories journals into the AMS citation database will help providing a strong alternative to Thomson. Cheers, Joachim. ---------------------------------------------------------------- Joachim Kock Departament de Matem=E0tiques -- Universitat Aut=F2noma de Barcelona Edifici C -- 08193 Bellaterra (Barcelona) -- ESPANYA Phone: +34 93 581 25 34 Fax: +34 93 581 27 90 ----------------------------------------------------------------