Re: Science Citation Index

[jim stasheff <jds@math.upenn.edu>]

Ronnie,

The AMS staff shoudl be doing this.
May I forward your msg to them
or just suggest they get on the ball?

jim

 Brown wrote:
> Dear All, 
>
> I did some investigation on this in 2003, but never got round to writing an article for the Notices AMS as was proposed. 
>
> I wrote to journals on the EMS list and asked their opinion of ISI. Some of the opinions were quite scathing. As Michael notes, dealing with ISI is like hitting a blank wall. 
>
> What ISI are trying to do is a little like Readers Digest: as ISI claim, they give the `Essential Science'. In practice, it seems they quickly put on their list journals from publishers (Homeopathy; Chaos, Solitons, Fractals;. ...) but put up all sorts of barriers to new independent journals. What does this show about the real aims of ISI? 
>
> They claim to have an assessment procedure for new journals, but what this procedure is remains undisclosed. 
>
> More discussion is given by Richard Poynder: 
>
> I wrote about this topic recently (http://poynder.blogspot.com/2008/11/open-access-question-of-quality_21.html). 
>
> This might also interest you, as it suggests there is a growing perception of the need to move beyond the impact factor:
>
>
> http://scienceblogs.com/clock/2008/11/why_does_impact_factor_persist.php
>
> It is not in ISI interests to take on more journals (more work, what reward?). It may be that they are using old technology (pre-Google?). 
>
> I looked on the Thomsons/ISI board once and found no academic representation. It is not clear that they have the expertise to do the job they claim to do. Unfortunately, many countreis accept their claims, and it is administratively convenient so to do. 
>
> A report by Charles Goldie for the LMS writes:
>
> " The last few paragraphs suggest one general point, not specific to mathematics, that I hope the CMS response can take up, which is that the citation studies planned by HEFCE to be its main indicators depend on data from a private overseas corporation with no responsi­bility to the UK whatsoever. The way the data are organised by the Thomson Corporation (choice of fields, selection of journals for inclusion, allocation to fields) has considerable prior consequences for what it is feasible to do with the data, and hence for what indicators HEFCE or their agents might wish to employ. For the research future of this country to be determined to a large extent in this way is absolutely craven, and seems to me simply shame­ful." 
>
> Thus there is considerable doubt that ISI are doing what could be called a professional academic job, though it might be called `professional' if the aim is simply to make money from data organised in a  way whose toxic potentiality is not easily open to view. 
>
> Charles  wrote to me:
>
> "As you'll see, part of what I found was that Thomson Scientific's
> classification of journals into fields has no coherence or logic.
> Algebra Colloquium is classed as Applied Mathematics!"
>
> The other point is that `great oaks from little acorns grow'. A new but vital area may have little `impact factor'. ISI procedures, and their acceptance for research evaluation,  are unfavourable to new initiatives, and trends. 
>
> Unfortunately, the discussion of how mathematics progresses, and how new ideas grow, the context, is not usually part of the study of mathematics for students, and my impression is there is little developed language to cope with this. (Music degrees allow for study of performance, musicology, composition, ..Can we learn from this?) See discussion in various articles on
> www.bangor.ac.uk/r.brown/publar.html
> particularly perhaps `The methodology of mathematics'. Comments and argument welcome! But I have found the views of `top people' (in the UK, FRS's) can be very naive, the `Groupoids is rubbish' school of thought, or `the van Kampen programme is a ridiculous programme', etc., etc. 
>
> If anyone would like more information to pursue this ISI matter, I am happy to help. My problem is that I have some writing priorities and am a bit too old to divert my attention too much. 
>
> But obviously it is bad news for the progress of mathematics if the EC is taken in by what ISI themselves say they do, rather than by an analysis of what they actually do. Please forward this to the EC if it might help!
>
> Ronnie
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