Re: [xmca] Publish and/or Perish

As a young scholar, I totally ENDORSE this petition, Michael. Indeed,
I have always thought that MCA`s influence and intellectual appeal is
not commensurate to its lack of inclusion in ISI. Alas, ISI! No
chance but to play according to its rules, I guess.
david

On Jul 4, 2008, at 4:39 PM, Wolff-Michael Roth wrote:

> Hi all,
> Mike and I have had a conversation off line. He suggested I should
> write to the list. It concerns the increasing pressure on all of us
> to publish in "good" journals, and universities increasingly use as
> a measure the presence and impact factor ranking in ISI Web of
> Science as a measure. This is especially true for Asian countries
> and other countries. With my graduate students, we always make
> selections based on this criterion, because I want them to be
> successful in their home countries and careers.
>
> In the sciences, this has long been common practice; now the social
> sciences are swept up by the same trend. I have recently been
> bombarded by publishers whose journals have increased in their
> impact factor. Furthermore, there are a number of companies that
> make the rankings of their journal a key bit of information on the
> website.
>
> (Some of) You may be asking what this has to do with you. Well,
> since I have been editing journals (besides MCA, I also do CULTURAL
> STUDIES OF SCIENCE EDUCATION and FQS: FORUM QUALITATIVE SOCIAL
> RESEARCH), I have been asked by new faculty members about rejection
> rates, rankings, etc. And I have been asked by department heads and
> deans as well.
>
> Some may decide to opt out, which would come with dire consequences
> for many, who might find themselves in the position of not being
> tenured or promoted.
>
> Unfortunately, we (MCA) currently are not in ISI Web of Science,
> which places those of you who publish in the journal in an
> unfortunate situation.
>
> One of the ways in which you, the community as a whole can be
> proactive producing the conditions that would convince ISI to make
> MCA one of the listed and ranked journals is to make it a habit to
> cite RECENT articles you have been reading in MCA. Here is why:
>
> The impact factor for 2007 (which is what was made available just a
> few days ago), for example, is calculated using the following formula:
>
> Number of citations in 2007 referencing
> articles published in 2005 and 2006
> impact factor =
> ----------------------------------------------------------------------
> ---------------------
> Number of citable articles
> published in 2005 and 2006
>
> (They may not take into account self-citation, but I am not sure)
>
> So the impact factor is 1 when a journal had 60 references from the
> outside while having published 60 articles (over 2005 and 2006).
>
> You see, as a community, you can help yourself by citing MCA work
> in other journals. With high rankings, MCA will be included in ISI
> and then you and your peers will be rated higher at your
> institution because it is part of ISI.
>
> Have a nice weekend all of you,
> Sincerely,
> Michael
>
>
> Wolff-Michael Roth, Editor-in-Chief
> MIND, CULTURE, AND ACTIVITY
> Email: mroth@uvic.ca
> Journal: http://www.tandf.co.uk/journals/1074-9039
> Submissions: http://mc.manuscriptcentral.com/mca
>
> _______________________________________________
> xmca mailing list
> xmca@weber.ucsd.edu
> http://dss.ucsd.edu/mailman/listinfo/xmca

David Preiss, Ph.D.
Subdirector de Extensión y Comunicaciones
Escuela de Psicología
Pontificia Universidad Catolica de Chile
Av Vicuña Mackenna - 4860
7820436 Macul
Santiago, Chile

Fono: 3544605
Fax: 3544844
e-mail: davidpreiss@uc.cl
web personal: http://web.mac.com/ddpreiss/
web institucional: http://www.epuc.cl/profesores/dpreiss

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Received on Fri Jul 4 13:51 PDT 2008