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

What Are the Best Open Access Journals for Paleontologists?

The number of open access journals available for paleontologists is growing rapidly (see both my previous post as well as a more comprehensive post over at SV-POW!). When it comes time to submit something for publication, the options can be quite disconcerting. What journal will best get that paper out there? Search engines are great for finding specific papers on a specific topic, but it's nice to know that the casual journal reader might also happen across your paper. So, which journals do my colleagues pay attention to? Which journals do my colleagues respect most?

Although inherently flawed in some respects, ranking systems provide a first pass at trying to evaluate publications. So, I've been working on developing a rudimentary ranking system for today's open access paleontology journals. And, I'd like your help! I'll be incorporating citation counts, page rankings, and other metrics, but would also like to consider reader opinion. So, I have developed a highly unscientific survey as part of this effort. Please take a few minutes to fill in your opinions.

As a preview, the survey provides a list of open access journals in paleontology, and asks you to rank them as "excellent," "good," "fair," "poor," or "I've never heard of it." The form will be open until next Friday evening at 11:45 (Pacific time). Results will be published here soon thereafter.

Coming Up, After Your Hard Work on the Poll: The Top Open Access Journals for Paleontology 2009.

Click Here to Take Survey

Off to the Field (and a Poll)!

As of tomorrow, I'm off to the field again for another two weeks or so. For your entertainment in my absence, I've opened up a poll until my return. My cynical side wanted to ask, "Which of these is the most overrated tool in paleontology?" But, I'm [usually] nicer than that (but I won't stop you from electing overrated technologies in the comments!).

See you in a few weeks.

Polling Thanks

A big thank you to everyone who contributed to the OS poll last week. It's really helpful to know who's reading this site, so that I can work on describing the software that has the most potential to be used by the most people. As you can see on the results (which are still posted as of today), 2/3 of the respondants use Windows, and 1/3 each use Mac or Linux. I am also impressed to see two Unix users on the list also (you outgeek me!).

The good news about open source (and free) software: usually, it's available in Windows, Mac, or Linux versions. The mixed news: sometimes it works better on one OS than another.