{"id":554,"date":"2012-12-09T14:21:57","date_gmt":"2012-12-09T12:21:57","guid":{"rendered":"http:\/\/blogs.uab.cat\/saramartinalegre\/?p=554"},"modified":"2012-12-09T14:21:57","modified_gmt":"2012-12-09T12:21:57","slug":"the-vagaries-of-journal-ratings-and-how-your-own-work-may-change-quality-without-you-lifting-a-finger","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/webs.uab.cat\/saramartinalegre\/2012\/12\/09\/the-vagaries-of-journal-ratings-and-how-your-own-work-may-change-quality-without-you-lifting-a-finger\/","title":{"rendered":"THE VAGARIES OF JOURNAL RATINGS (AND HOW YOUR OWN WORK MAY CHANGE QUALITY WITHOUT YOU LIFTING A FINGER) <\/strong>"},"content":{"rendered":"

A colleague tells me that she\u2019s very disappointed as a prestige journal where she published an article has now been demoted from the A list to the B list (in the ANECA check-lists, I think). She is really annoyed that when the time comes to pass her research assessment exercise this will affect her negatively. Her jewel in the crown is lost and this doesn\u2019t make any sense to her (or myself), since her article remains unaltered. I tell about this to another friend, and he tells me that in his case it\u2019s the opposite: a journal where he published recently an article has gone from B to A, which, of course, means also a gain for him although, logically, his article has not changed at all.<\/p>\n

As a Literature teacher I\u2019m well aware that the reputation of books changes throughout time, with very popular, even well respected authors meaning nothing to a later generation (I have just read, for instance, a blog review in which the author comments that since everyone has forgotten who Robert A. Heinlein was, he needs to point our he dominated SF between the 1960s and the 1980s \u2013 that\u2019s how volatile fame is). Magazines of any kind are subject to the same vagaries. After all, everyone has forgotten where Edgar Allan Poe published his tales whereas the tales themselves stay in print. Something tells me, though, that academic journals should not suffer from the same kind of capricious fate since a change in their fortunes means, as you can see, a change in ours. This happens, as I have explained many times, because our articles are rated according to where we publish and not to what they do contribute to knowledge regardless of where they are published.<\/p>\n

There\u2019s really nothing much to add to this absurd state of matters and today\u2019s post should perhaps end here. I\u2019ll add, though, a few more comments. <\/p>\n

The very efficient staff at the Humanities Library of my university have developed a very complete resource for those working on their accreditations: the website \u201cSuport a l\u2019acreditaci\u00f3 i l\u2019avaluaci\u00f3 de la recerca\u201d (http:\/\/www.bib.uab.cat\/human\/acreditacions\/planes\/publiques\/index.php<\/a>). If you have a rainy afternoon soon coming you might spend it comparing how the diverse Spanish agencies regard particular journals, citation databases and general resources (like Google Scholar). You\u2019ll see this way the many incongruities we fight daily…<\/p>\n

The other hot matter is the revision of ERIH\u2019s criteria for the 2011 lists. Instead of the former A-B-C ratings, journals are now divided into two main categories, NATional (NAT), which refers to recognised \u201cEuropean publications… mostly linguistically circumscribed … occasionally cited outside the publishing country, though their main target group is the domestic academic community\u201d and INTernational (INT), defined as \u201cboth European and non-European publications with an internationally recognised scholarly significance … regularly cited worldwide.\u201d INT journals subdivide on the basis of \u201cinfluence and scope\u201d into INT1, influential \u201cin the various research domains in different countries, regularly cited all over the world,\u201d and INT2 \u201cwith significant visibility and influence in the various research domains in different countries.\u201d I\u2019m not sure I see much difference, as everyone knows that INT1 is A, INT2 is B and NAT is C even in their own countries. There is by the way, still no list for Cultural Studies. I\u2019m happy to say there is one for Gender Studies, though much biased in favour of Feminist Studies.<\/p>\n

An A-list journal accepts about 10% of the submissions it receives and, often, an article tailored to meet its requirements is very hard to recycle for another publication, as each has its specific rules and aims. Just imagine making it into the elite \u2013ha, ha… \u2013 only to be told perhaps a couple of years later that your work is just run of the mill. How tempting, once more, to give in to temptation and self-publish…<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"

A colleague tells me that she\u2019s very disappointed as a prestige journal where she published an article has now been demoted from the A list to the B list (in the ANECA check-lists, I think). She is really annoyed that when the time comes to pass her research assessment exercise this will affect her negatively. […]<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":98,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[1],"tags":[408],"class_list":["post-554","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","hentry","category-sin-categoria","tag-research"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/webs.uab.cat\/saramartinalegre\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/554","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/webs.uab.cat\/saramartinalegre\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/webs.uab.cat\/saramartinalegre\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/webs.uab.cat\/saramartinalegre\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/98"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/webs.uab.cat\/saramartinalegre\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=554"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/webs.uab.cat\/saramartinalegre\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/554\/revisions"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/webs.uab.cat\/saramartinalegre\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=554"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/webs.uab.cat\/saramartinalegre\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=554"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/webs.uab.cat\/saramartinalegre\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=554"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}