Dear all,
We are all used to the tyranny of impact factors: high impact
publication in "well esteemed" journals, as dictated by the Supreme
Authority - excuse me, I meant Thomson Reuters - often substitutes
the judgement of interview panels, grant review panels and sometimes
is a decision-maker for lazy referees. A 'high impact' publication in
your CV often counts as much as consistent work done for years and is
considered the gateway for good jobs and careers. And, alas, your Acta
Cryst papers, would not count ...
Since yesterday though, a single person, no other than the ccp4bb
bulletin board subscriber and contributor, and an emblematic figure of
our community, George Sheldrick, has managed with one action to
showcase the flaws of this system. Since yesterday, officially, the
top ranking journal according to the official Thomson Reuters Impact
factor is: Acta Crystallographica Part A. How was that made possible?
Simply by publishing a 'short history about SHELX' and requesting
users to cite it. It took two years, but now Acta A has displaced
Cell, Nature, Science and even New England Journal of Medicine from
the top ranks.
Well, good luck to all the methods-folk who are up for tenure, here is
your chance guys and girls ... it will not last long!!!
Best regards,
Tassos
Specifically, the publication with second highest impact factor in the
"science" category isActa Crystallographica - Section A, knocking none
other than theNew England Journal of Medicinefrom the runner's up
position. This title's impact factor rocketed up to 49.926 this year,
more than 20-fold higher than last year. A single article published in
a 2008 issue of the journal seems to be responsible for the meteoric
rise in theActa Crystallographica - Section A's impact factor."A short
history of SHELX,"by University of Göttingen crystallographerGeorge
Sheldrick,which reviewed the development of the computer system SHELX,
has been cited more than 6,600 times, according to ISI. This paper
includes a sentence that essentially instructs readers to cite the
paper they're reading -- "This paper could serve as a general
literature citation when one or more of the open-source SHELX programs
(and the Bruker AXS version SHELXTL) are employed in the course of a
crystal-structure determination." (Note: This may be a good way to
boost your citations.)
- [ccp4bb] Impact Factors Anastassis Perrakis
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