CHOOSING THE APPROPRIATE MEDIUM FOR YOUR PUBLICATION: JOURNAL SELECTION TACTICS

SCIENTIFIC

LAWRENCE LIBERTI, MS, RPh

VP, GENERAL MANAGER

JUNE 2008

Overview

• Journal Types

• Assessing Journal Characteristics

• Comparative Class Analyses

• Conclusions

Journal Selection is Key to Physicians

Liberti, Casebeer et al: 64th Annual AMWA Conference, Oct 2004, St. Louis MO

Journal Types

• Trade

• Peer-reviewed– Print

– Online

– Open-access

• Society Sponsored

• Commissioned article journals

Open to Your Ideas

Rapid Comm’s

Primary Research

Reviews Suppl’s

Trade ++++++ ++++++ 00 ++ ++

Print/ Online ++++ ++ ++++++ ++++++ ++++

Open Access ++++++ ++++++ ++++++ ++++++ ++++++

Commissioned

++ 00 00 ++++ ++

Assessing Journal Characteristics• Journal statistics provide a systematic and

objective way to measure the influence of journals, identify trends, categorize and characterize journals

• Multiple metrics need to be considered

• Objective metrics

• Subjective metrics

• Confusing metrics

Sponsorship

• Society-sponsored

• Commercial published

• Partnership of society/academia – commercial publisher

Editorial Board

• Does one exist?

• What is it’s role?

• How often do members changes?

• Are there potential conflicts of interest?

Reach/Readership/Audience

• Does the journal reach the desired audience?

• By what measure(s) is this determined?

• Quality of audience

• Quantity of audience

Ulrich’s Periodicals Directory

http://www.ulrichsweb.com/ulrichsweb/

Publication “Lag Time”

• How long does it take to get an article– Reviewed

– Accepted

– Published

• How important is rapidity of publication to the particular research?

Source: TMMS, June 2008 Atrial Fibrillation TA

“Quality Scores”

• What metrics can be used to measure the quality and relevance of information in a journal?

Quality Scores

– Faculty of 1000 (www.f1000medicine.com)• Articles are identified and scored by “Faculty Members”

• Score 3,6,9 (recommend, must read, exceptional)

• Consistency, clinical relevance?

Quality Scores• READER Scoring system

– Relevance- to my practice

– Education – influence on behavior

– Applicability – could it be used in practice?

– Discrimination- Quality of methodology and presentation

– Evaluation- scoring using above criteria

– Reaction- Four categories• Classic paper, immediate impact• Important enough to be filed• Of possible interest• Ignore

MacAuley D: Br J Gen Pract. 1994 Feb;44(379):83-5

Quality Scores• Thomson Message Mapping SystemSM (TMMS)

• Scores based on– Science - Source Score

– Quality – JIF

– Evidence – Message Factor

– Format – Letter, Brief Comm, Primary Article

http://www.thomsonreuters.com/products_services/scientific1/tmms

Source: TMMS, June 2008 Atrial Fibrillation TA

Other Journal Metrics

• Journal Citation Reports

Similar statistics are provided for the overall category, this provides

“benchmark” statistics for similar journals.

As with the journals, the details of the calculation are provided for each metric

Category data view

Key Citation Statistics and additional valuable detail.

Explore relationships with other journals through

“Cited” and “Citing” data.

Other Journal Metrics

• The Eigenfactor

• Eigenfactor.org is a non-commercial academic research project sponsored by the Bergstrom lab in the Department of Biology at the University of Washington.

• Goal: to develop novel methods for evaluating the influence of scholarly periodicals and for mapping the structure of academic research

The Eigenfactor

• Ranks journals much as Google ranks websites.

• Measures journal price as well as citation influence

• Contains 100K+ reference items

• Adjusts for citation differences across disciplines

• Uses 5-year citation data

Allows for Better Comparisons Across Research Areas

http://www.eigenfactor.org/whyeigenfactor.htm

Eigenfactor and JCR• With EF the review journals don’t appear at the top

of the ranking the way they do with the JIF (possible strength)

• EF is a recursive formula that takes into account the prestige of the journals that cite your journal.  Sometimes a relatively obscure journal can be elevated if it gets cited by Science and Nature

• EF is based on the JCR cited-citing matrix

• EF uses JCR “citable item” counts

• The algorithm similar to Google’s page rank

• Does EF magnifies the Matthew effect? (ie, “the rich get richer”)

Journal Price

http://www.eigenfactor.org/whyeigenfactor.htm

Comparative Class Analysis

http://www.eigenfactor.org/whyeigenfactor.htm

Level of Discourse within a Particular Journal

J ournal Name Audience Number of Times Cited

American Society of Hypertension cardio 163

J ournal of Hypertension cardio 153

International Society of Hypertension cardio 83

European Heart J ournal cardio 55

American J ournal of Hypertension cardio 45

Conclusions

• Journal selection is important with respect to how readers perceive published information

• Journal selection criteria are subject to interpretation

• No single metric is capable of identifying the “right” journal for a submission