From mboxrd@z Thu Jan 1 00:00:00 1970 X-Msuck: nntp://news.gmane.io/gmane.science.mathematics.categories/6855 Path: news.gmane.org!not-for-mail From: "Eduardo J. Dubuc" Newsgroups: gmane.science.mathematics.categories Subject: Re: science_publishers Date: Thu, 01 Sep 2011 15:26:19 -0300 Message-ID: References: Reply-To: "Eduardo J. Dubuc" NNTP-Posting-Host: lo.gmane.org Mime-Version: 1.0 Content-Type: text/plain; charset=ISO-8859-1; format=flowed Content-Transfer-Encoding: 7bit X-Trace: dough.gmane.org 1314991464 29953 80.91.229.12 (2 Sep 2011 19:24:24 GMT) X-Complaints-To: usenet@dough.gmane.org NNTP-Posting-Date: Fri, 2 Sep 2011 19:24:24 +0000 (UTC) To: Categories Original-X-From: majordomo@mlist.mta.ca Fri Sep 02 21:24:20 2011 Return-path: Envelope-to: gsmc-categories@m.gmane.org Original-Received: from smtpy.mta.ca ([138.73.1.128]) by lo.gmane.org with esmtp (Exim 4.69) (envelope-from ) id 1QzZLg-0004Qf-16 for gsmc-categories@m.gmane.org; Fri, 02 Sep 2011 21:24:20 +0200 Original-Received: from mlist.mta.ca ([138.73.1.63]:45952) by smtpy.mta.ca with esmtp (Exim 4.76) (envelope-from ) id 1QzZK6-0002Qs-My; Fri, 02 Sep 2011 16:22:42 -0300 Original-Received: from majordomo by mlist.mta.ca with local (Exim 4.71) (envelope-from ) id 1QzZK6-0006UK-0d for categories-list@mlist.mta.ca; Fri, 02 Sep 2011 16:22:42 -0300 In-Reply-To: Precedence: bulk Xref: news.gmane.org gmane.science.mathematics.categories:6855 Archived-At: Marta Bunge writes: "it is (still) a measure of success by grant giving agencies to have published in such journals and, in turn, a measure for promotion considerations." Michael Barr writes: "Finally convince granting agencies to find better ways of measuring impact." This is just the real problem. Michael, it is not "finally", but "first of all". Once this is changed, high ranked journals will be in trouble. But, I am afraid it will be impossible. There is an arrow in evolution, and this arrow points into the fact that journals rankings and impact factors are going to be more and more determinant for the academic career of 99% of the mathematicians (expet for the future few Grothendiecks Serres Cartans and the like). Something on the other hand can be attempted: 1) Make a strong campaign so to popularize and convince all authors to send their papers to the arXiv. 2) Convince all libraries to stop all subscriptions to journals, and install electronic easy to use catalogs of all arXiv papers, have them in stock, and furnish the structure for the immediate printing of requested papers. Personally, most of the reading I am doing recently are from arXiv papers, not from published papers. On the other hand, the only papers which are considered for grant soliciting, promotions (and even worst, here if you stop publishing you loose your job, which is at stake every 7 years) are published papers, the more high ranked (impact factor) the journal the better. So, to read the work of others, and make your own work known, you will use the arXiv, to get ahead in your academic career you will publish (papers which nobody will need to buy). e.d. [For admin and other information see: http://www.mta.ca/~cat-dist/ ]