> (4) Last, and perhaps least, surely there are *some*
> researchers who still care
> about whether or not their research is making an *impact*, in
> the sense that it is
> being used and built upon. Otherwise they might just as well
> have put it in a
> desk-drawer (having duly registered it as yet another bean,
> sprouted), rather than
> bothering with PUBLICation at all...)
>
> So they prefer journals without page charge rather than OA journals.
>
>[SH]
> This is a (regrettably rather common) non-sequitur: One can maximizing
> one's research impact by maximizing access to one's papers in *two*
> ways. The 5% ("golden") way is to try to find a suitable OA journal to
> publish one's research in
> (5% of journals are gold: http://www.doaj.org/ )
> and the funds to pay the charges. The 95% way is to publish one's
> research in the most suitable journal, regardless of whether or not
> it is gold, but also to make it OA by self-archiving it in one's own
> institutional repository. (92% of journals are already "green" in that
> they have given their official green light to author self-archiving:
> http://romeo.eprints.org/ ).
Stevan
Talking of non-sequiturs: the fact that only, perhaps, 5% of journals are
'Gold' (i.e. offer immediate full Open Access) does not by any means imply
that there is only a 5% chance of finding an appropriate Open Access journal
for one's research. The range of 'Gold' open access journals, at least in
the biomedical field, is now so large that for pretty much any conceivable
paper, there are several potentially suitable 'Gold' Open Access journals
for an author to choose from. So I'm unclear why you continue to suggest
that this 5% figure in itself a major obstacle to publishing in a 'Gold' OA
journal. The 5% figure is simply a reflection of the fact that currently,
only a subset of researchers publish in OA titles, just as currently only a
minority self-archive. But the 5% figure is no more of an absolute obstacle
to the growth of 'Gold' OA publication, than the current (fairly low) rate
of self-archiving is an absolute block to more self-archiving in the future.
Matt
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Received on Thu Mar 10 2005 - 10:58:26 GMT