Rick Anderson:
> I repeat: it is that offering a scholarly author lots of readers may
> not tempt her to publish in an OA journal unless publishing in that
> journal will also confer upon her professional prestige. For example,
> as a tenure-seeking librarian, I would rather publish an article in,
> say, Serials Review than, say, American Libraries -- even though AL has
> many more readers than SR.
"Serials Review" is a peer-reviewed journal.
"American libraries" does not appear to be peer-reviewed at all,
although I'm not certain that it isn't. It looks a lot like a trade
magazine from its web page.
Rick Anderson's example therefore seems irrelevant to the question
what of two journals, both equivalent in respect of being peer-reviewed,
an author might or should prefer.
As for how OA journals (since we do seem to be talking about OA journals
here) might "attract authors", it seems as though there is no specific problem
they will face in this respect that is not common with all peer-reviewed journals.
Prestige is a matter of being known (and expected) to have more worthwhile
papers than not, scrupulous and efficient reviewing and editorship, a highly
regarded editorial board, high standards of production, etc. And, of course, a
high impact factor compared to journals in the same field. And impact factors
depend on citations. And citations correlate with accessibility. So along one
dimension at least, an OA journal may have an easier time getting prestige
than a non-OA one.
==
David Spurrett
Philosophy
University of KwaZulu-Natal,
Durban, 4041, South Africa.
T: +27 (31) 260 2309 / 260 2292
F: +27 (31) 260 3031
E: spurrett_at_ukzn.ac.za
W:
http://www.nu.ac.za/undphil/spurrett/
--------------------------------------------------------------------
Please find our disclaimer at
http://www.ukzn.ac.za/disclaimer
--------------------------------------------------------------------
<<<<gwavasig>>>>
Received on Mon Dec 13 2004 - 08:28:33 GMT