Jeff Montgomery edited impactful changes.tex  over 9 years ago

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\section{Impactful Changes}  On Monday, ScienceInsider posted a piece on a \href{http://news.sciencemag.org/scientific-community/2014/10/uprising-less-prestigious-journals-publishing-greater-share-high-impact?utm_campaign=email-news-latest}{massive meta-analysis} of the Google Scholar archives comparing the top-ten "elite" journals to "the rest" in each of several broadly defined academic categories.The findings are enlightening.  For papers publishedover the period  from 1995 to 2013 (inclusive), there was an astounding 64\% average increase of top-1000 cited papers coming out of non-elite journals (here, "elite" designates the top-ten most-cited journals for a given category; "non-elite" the rest). Lest you worry these represent the \textit{only} cited articles in non-elite journals: the total share of citations going to non-elite articles rose from 27\% to 47\% over the same period. Part of the reason for this sudden shift is digitization. In the conclusion to the \href{http://arxiv.org/pdf/1410.2217.pdf}{paper} produced by the team responsible for Google Scholar (10 years ago this month), they state:  \begin{quote}  Now that finding and reading relevant articles in non-elite journals is about as easy as finding and reading articles in elite journals, researchers are increasingly building on and citing work published everywhere.  \end{quote}  With the introduction of exactingly searchable databases, the playing field is indeed leveling for access and awareness of all tiers of journals, splashy-high-impact factor or otherwise. This naturally leads to faster and more efficient scientific endeavors. Imagine (Imagine  getting \href{https://www.authorea.com/users/3/articles/10564/_show_article}{even closer}, accessing new developments and discoveries in near-real-time. If you think the rate of progress in science is dizzying \textit{now}.... \textit{now}....)  Not mentioned, however, is the fact that fields have grown more specialized, and publishers have responded by producing more specialty-specific journals. This may in part account for the increased share of non-elite citations: the publication of a groundbreaking article in a lower impact specialty journal will become a necessary citation in many subsequent papers in that and related fields. Another interesting point to consider in future studies is how open access journals measure up in citation rate. It has also been documented that high impact, elite journals have higher rates of retraction\cite{Fang_2011}. Do the high impact works from non-elite journals show comparable rates of retraction? Given their high impact, many of the same explanations high impact journals give for higher retraction rates should still apply (i.e. increased exposure and thus increased  scrutiny). One more thing. Look at this graph: