The main German science funding agency DFG has made some decisions lately, that seem to clash with their progressive #openscience policies. Grant applicants, at the very least, will want to know what is going on:
ICYMI yesterday, there have been some puzzling actions and decisions at the main German funder DFG @dfg_public recently, which seem to clash with their otherwise stellar #openscience policies:
You can't be bothered to read about all that is wrong with #impactfactor and journal rank? Here is the video with all the data on how the most prestigious journals publish the least reliable science.
The publishing sector has a problem. Scientists are overwhelmed, editors are overworked, special issue invitations are constant, research paper mills, article retractions, journal delistings… JUST WHAT IS GOING ON!?
Lastly let’s talk #ImpactFactor (IF). Reminder: IF = avg cites/doc articles in a journal receive within 1st 2y. IF values total cites.
IFs are going up 📈: they’re literally being inflated like a currency. So if you see a journal celebrating its year-over-year increase in IF, you’ve gotta normalize for inflation. This inflation accompanies the huge crush of special issues from earlier. But(!) a citation network-adjusted rank (Scimago Journal Rank, SJR) hasn’t changed accordingly. What gives? 9/n
Analysis of 10k peer reviews reveals that those for high-#ImpactFactor#journals pay more attention to Materials/Methods but less to Presentation/Reporting (those for low-#JIF journals emphasize solutions) @annasvrn@eggersnsf@ste_mueller &co #PLOSBiologyhttps://plos.io/45tDVzz
Journal performance beyond the #ImpactFactor. Cristina Huidiu at Elsevier (a former librarian) says responsible use of metrics - article metrics, journal metrics, & #altmetrics - can be business indicators to help publishers to make decisions.
Can get insights into impact beyond citations and trends in fields, from patents and funding.
Collaboration patterns of existing authors can show new directions of their work.
"#Elsevier told editors that fees were based on a journal’s reputation —specifically, their #ImpactFactor. As the editors grew the journal’s prestige, Elsevier increased the publication fee by about 15%…Keilholz…concluded that the incentives for #ForProfit publishers were not aligned with 'what we want for science.' "