Re: [tlug] Journals, Authors and 'Free Peer Review'

[Benjamin Kowarsch <trijezdci@example.com>]

Raymond Wan writes:

 > They do give weight to citations but the weight for something like
 > ArXiv will be a 0.  [Disclaimer: No, I haven't asked.]

In the EU this will no longer be permitted, at least not for grant applications. Part

of the new Plan S (see other post) to foster open access publishing, they also

decided to get rid of using journal impact as a criterion.

What these grant agencies are interested in is whether research is published

and available to the general public without charge. They will no longer care

where the research is published as long as it is open access.

Stephen J.Turnbull wrote:

The effect I, and I'm pretty sure Benjamin, am thinking about
is more indirect.  People will see your ArXiv article, and more
important it may be an URL that's easier to remember or consider
"important".  Knowing your name from reading it, they may look for
your other, more reputable, publications, especially any in the
bibliography.  The argument is that an ArXiv listing is real cheap, a
few seconds to upload.

Not only that, but there are more and more researchers who do not have

access to all the paywalled articles because universities are drastically

cutting back on spending. If your article happens to be published in a

paywalled journal to which a growing number of researches do not have

access, then they won't read your paper and won't cite you.

Sure they may well find the abstract of your article by keyword search,

but the chance of a hit is far lower than a full text search. Out of habit

I have done keyword searches on title and abstract on ArXiv.org and

this turned up very little while I got a lot more and better hits when I

changed to search full text. But even if they find your abstract, that

doesn't guarantee they will then purchase your article to read it.

BTW, there are tons of articles on ArXiv.org that are also published

in peer reviewed journals. Quite often when I am looking for an

article that I know (from bibliography entries of other articles or books)

was published in a certain peer reviewed journal, I can find the article

on ArXiv.org. Otherwise, I will have to ask my research partner to get

it because I don't have any access to paywalled research myself.

Not publishing in any open access manner pretty much cuts one off

from an increasing number of potential readers who might otherwise

have cited one's work.

The potential upside is huge, although
probably not realized very often (I mentioned 1000000:1 before :-).

I think that is changing though.

There are more and more open access journals now and ArXiv.org

was transferred from LANL to Cornell precisely because it grew so

large that it needed a new maintainer who could handle that growth.

I can't see how this trend wouldn't continue and it is likely to accelerate.

Right.  As long as ArXiv isn't below those, why not?  That's what I
(and again I think Benjamin too) are arguing.  Might even convince a
non-technical university-level committee your c.v. is longer than it
looks. :-)

I am not sure that is necessarily a good thing. :-)

If you put something on your CV, it is generally best to put it there

because it is relevant and of interest to a potential hirer so that they

might actually go click on it and read it, then let the quality of the content

convince them that you are worth hiring. Putting stuff there just to show off

is generally not a good idea.

regards

benjamin