At 12:34 19/12/02 +0000, vous avez =E9crit:
>And (subtle, but critically important!), we need to know the *quality
>level* of the current open-access journals -- as well as of the current
>self-archived refereed articles -- within the hierarchy of journals
>(and articles). An estimate of this would come from the journal impact
>factors (and perhaps also the rejection rates) of the open-access journals
>(as estimated, for example, by ISI's http://wos.mimas.ac.uk/),
>compared to the rest, and from the author and article citation (and
>perhaps usage) impacts for the self-archived article (as estimated, for
>example, by http://citebase.eprints.org/ and http://citeseer.nj.nec.com/cs)
I agree that the quality level of the current open-access journals has
to be scientifically measured by all the means you suggest. Waiting for
this study, I can only give my impressions in the field that I know:
biology.
It seems that (apart from a few well known titles) the 14% free
access biological periodicals listed by the Electronic Journal Library
http://rzblx1.uni-regensburg.de/ezeit/index.phtml?bibid=3DAAAAA&colors=3D7&lang=3Den
are not the most attractive for researchers in biology, even if these
titles are very useful.
It seems that some are newsletters, some look like catalogues, and some
are published in a language not easily read by the majority of scientists.
Many come from countries whose literature has till now been ignored by
others. These publishers have well understood that free online access
is the only way to get out of the shadows!
[See: "Access-Denial, Impact-Denial and the Developing and Developed World"
http://www.ecs.soton.ac.uk/~harnad/Hypermail/Amsci/2171.html ]
So, thank you for reminding us about this useful Regensburg site, but I
prefer not to use for it for estimating the number of free periodicals,
because presently this free-access literature does not seem representative
of what the scientific community is expecting by way of rapid progress in
knowledge creation and access.
Helene Bosc
Unite Physiologie de la Reproduction
et des Comportements
UMR 6073 INRA-CNRS-Universite de Tours
37380 Nouzilly
France
http://www.tours.inra.fr/
TEL : 02 47 42 78 00
FAX : 02 47 42 77 43
e-mail: hbosc_at_tours.inra.fr
Received on Thu Dec 19 2002 - 15:50:02 GMT