Open Access Paleontology Rankings - Part II

This post continues the series on the 2009 Open Access Paleontology Journal Rankings. Previously, I posted the rankings for Immediate Open Access Journals for General Submission. Here, I'll release the general results for Immediate Open Access Journals. As mentioned previously, this category includes both journals to which anyone can submit a manuscript, as well as those with more restrictive authorship requirements. This latter category includes several museum publications, such as American Museum Novitates [see their submission policies here]. For journals such as these, authors usually must be an employee or research associate of the publishing institution, or receive special invitation. Journals with delayed open access (such as Science) are not included on the present list.

As always, the ratings are based on a combination of journal citations, recent citations, number of articles, and community opinion (outlined in my previous post). At the end of this series, I will post the raw data underlying the ratings.

Yet Again With the Caveats
Remember, these rankings are only one method for measuring the efficacy, quality, and impact of a journal, and you will probably disagree with one or more of the placements on the list. Especially for relatively young journals, rankings may change rapidly in the coming years.

Top Immediate Open Access Journals for Paleontology 2009
(General Results)

1. Acta Palaeontologica Polonica, American Museum Novitates, PLoS Biology [tie]
   
2. [tie]
3. [tie]
4. Bulletin of the American Museum of Natural History
5. Ameghiniana
6. Paläontologische Zeitschrift
7. PLoS ONE
8. Palaeontologia Electronica
9. Geologica Acta
10. Vertebrata PalAsiatica
11. Bulletin of the Museum of Comparative Zoology, Geodiversitas [tie]
12. [tie]
    
13. Geogaceta
14. Estudios Geológicos
15. Smithsonian Contributions to Paleobiology
16. Contributions from the Museum of Paleontology
17. Revue de Paléobiologie
18. Memoir of the Fukui Prefectural Dinosaur Museum
19. Contributions in Science from the Natural History Museum of Los Angeles County
20. Journal of Paleontological Sciences*
    
21. Coloquios de Paleontología
22. PalArch
23. Joannea - Geologie und Paläontologie
24. Natura Nascosta
25. The Open Paleontology Journal
26. Palaeodiversity
27. Journal of Paleontological Techniques
    

*not included in the community ranking survey

Notes
In some cases, relative ranks of journals may differ in this list from the previous category. This is because journals are ranked relative to all entries in a single category. For instance, PLoS ONE and PLoS Biology were tied in the last list, but are separated in the present one. Let's consider the number of article citations - relative to all immediate open access journals, PLoS ONE is ranked fifteenth and PLoS Biology is ranked second. When we exclude museum journals, the ratings move to ninth and second, respectively. When you add up all the rankings, little changes like this can jostle a journal's position; such behavior is particularly common near the top of the list. Later, I'll be releasing the underlying data and you can see for yourself.

Up Next. . .All Open Access Journals