Open Access Paleontology Journals - Community Opinions

We're almost to the end of the series on the 2009 Open Access Paleontology Journal Rankings (see other posts in the series here, here, and here)! Citations and number of papers are all well-and-good, but one thing that's often omitted in journal comparisons is community opinion. In other words, what do paleontologists think of this or that journal? Have they even heard of the journal?

In order to see how open access journals have fared within the paleontology community, I ran an informal survey. It provided a list of open access journals in paleontology, and asked respondents to rank each publication as "excellent," "good," "fair," "poor," or "I've never heard of it." This survey was advertised on this blog, Facebook, the Dinosaur Mailing List, VRTPALEO Mailing List, and Laelaps. Ninety-two people responded, but not everyone answered every question. I have no idea (for the most part) who filled out the survey, but given the scope of advertising and the bits of feedback I received, I suspect respondents were primarily professional paleontologists and students of paleontology. Given the distribution of results, I have no reason to suspect poll crashing, but would also caution that this is not a scientifically sampled survey, either.

The results were then tallied, and an average rating was assigned to each. An excellent counted as 1 point, good as 2, fair as 3, poor as 4, and "never heard of it" as 5 points. So, here's the list from highest to lowest rating; the results are presented as "Journal Name, Average Score, (# Excellent Ratings, # Good Ratings, # Fair Ratings, # Poor Ratings, # Never Heard of It, Total Responses)." Journals with immediate open access are listed in bold.

Community Opinions of Open Access Paleontological Journals, 2009

1. Proceedings of the National Academy of Sciences, 1.45 (53, 19, 7, 1, 0; 80 total)
   
2. Proceedings of the Royal Society B, 1.52 (59, 20, 3, 1, 4; 87 total)
3. Bulletin of the American Museum of Natural History, 1.56 (53, 28, 5, 0, 3; 89 total)
4. American Museum Novitates, 1.57 (51, 33, 3, 0, 3; 90 total)
5. Acta Palaeontologica Polonica, 1.64 (51, 30, 6, 0, 4; 91 total)
6. PLoS ONE, 1.79 (44, 27, 8, 3, 4; 86 total)
7. Palaeontologia Electronica, 1.94 (30, 38, 16, 0, 3; 87 total)
   
8. PLoS Biology, 1.99 (36, 32, 4, 2, 9; 83 total)
9. Biology Letters, 2.36 (23, 33, 11, 1, 13; 81 total)
   
10. Smithsonian Contributions to Paleobiology, 2.58 (18, 32, 11, 4, 15; 80 total)
11. Bulletin of the Museum of Comparative Zoology, 2.62 (19, 28, 17, 1, 17; 82 total)
12. Paläontologische Zeitschrift, 2.64 (17, 30, 20, 3, 15; 85 total)
13. Ameghiniana, 2.87 (12, 27, 23, 4, 18; 84 total)
14. Contributions in Science from the Natural History Museum of Los Angeles County, 2.92 (14, 27, 15, 6, 21; 83 total)
15. Vertebrata PalAsiatica, 3.01 (10, 22, 26, 9, 17; 84 total)
16. Geodiversitas, 3.08 (9, 29, 17, 4, 25; 84 total)
17. Contributions from the Museum of Paleontology, 3.31 (11, 20, 14, 3, 32; 80 total)
18. Revue de Paléobiologie, 3.48 (5, 23, 15, 3, 34; 80 total)
19. PalArch, 3.55 (4, 13, 28, 9, 29; 83 total)
20. Palaeodiversity, 3.71 (3, 22, 13, 3, 42; 83 total)
21. Memoir of the Fukui Prefectural Dinosaur Museum, 3.94 (3, 8, 19, 10, 39; 79 total)
22. The Open Paleontology Journal, 4.01 (4, 14, 9, 5, 50; 82 total)
23. Journal of Paleontological Techniques, 4.04 (5, 7, 14, 8, 46; 80 total)
24. Geologica Acta, 4.05 (1, 13, 15, 2, 48; 79 total)
    
25. Estudios Geológicos, 4.12 (1, 12, 14, 5, 51; 83 total)
26. Coloquios de Paleontología, 4.24 (2, 8, 14, 3, 56; 83 total)
27. Geogaceta, 4.43 (0, 7, 10, 5, 59; 81 total)
    
28. Natura Nascosta, 4.49 (0, 6, 8, 7, 60; 81 total)
29. Joannea - Geologie und Paläontologie, 4.51 (2, 5, 5, 7, 62; 81 total)
    

Notes
A low rating does not necessarily mean a journal for which paleontologists have a low opinion. In at least some cases (e.g., Palaeodiversity), low scores result largely from poor "brand recognition." As the crop of new journals matures, and as the internet allows broader distribution of work, this situation is likely to change.

The journals Revista Brasileira de Paleontologia, Science, and Journal of Paleontological Sciences were inadvertently omitted from the poll.

Final Thoughts
In hindsight, there are a few more things I'm curious about. How do major closed access journals such as JVP stack up against their open access brethern? Who responded to the survey, and how do different types of paleontologists (students, early career and late career professionals, etc.) consider open access journals versus their closed access counterparts? What are general attitudes amongst paleontologists towards open access?

Coming Up. . .A Final Post With Raw Scores