Review of Journals

A committee formed at the 22nd IUCr General Assembly to provide an overview of journals activity.
Sven Lidin
Posts: 4
Joined: Thu Sep 01, 2011 9:52 pm

Re: Review of Journals

Post by Sven Lidin » Sat Oct 15, 2011 10:56 pm

There are many interconnected issues that need to be dealt with in our discussions, but I feel we need to separate them to make headway. I would like to identify the following (in descending order of urgency/importance)

Content and Structure

The question of what content we want to see in our journals must be the first priority. The structuring of this content into our journal is important, but should be a consequence of the first issue. I think the question of how to admit correct but less precise structures is at the heart of this. If we manage to do this successfully, we are better prepared to move into new areas where crystallography is an important tool, but where our present-day standards may be overly harsh. There are clearly areas where we have managed this, and it has been to our advantage. Certainly Walter is right that we do not normally get the headline content since we are a specialist journal. Authors will go for generalist journals when able to. Still I think our journals have done well is certain areas. Macromolecular crystallography is one. Acta D is doing well and as the volume of macromolecular work is escalating even further there will be a steady flow of contributions. Here we need to be primed to capture the outcome of proteomics consortia if possible.
Another success story is aperiodic crystallography. Again, data is not always as good as for conventional small molecule work, but there is a lot of interesting science going on. Lots of important work on this has gone to Acta and we should pride ourselves on that. I’m sure you could all contribute similar stories in other fields. The important question is where are we missing out today, and where will we miss out tomorrow? I think there are already things in crystal engineering and nano science that we should be part of as well as crystallography at extreme conditions. Dynamic studies and analysis of diffuse scattering are still very much JSR type studies, but should feature also in our other journals. How do we actively solicit this content?

After listening to and reading lots of opinions I’m getting a feeling that the conversion of Acta A to “Frontiers of Structural Science” may not be such a bad idea. Here we could place cutting edge structural science and reviews on current and coming topics. The roles of B, C and JAC as second tier journal may be a tad controversial, but that would be the price for such a strategy. We might use the successful strategy of JAC in capturing a well-defined segment of authors as an inspiration for how to define B and C. Mathematical and Physical crystallography (B) and Chemical crystallography (C) may be appropriate given the Biological crystallography of D. That would make B the receptacle of a lot of todays submissions to A, but it would better define the relative roles of B and C. We would need statistical input to see if there is viable business for these two branches. My point would be that it would be clearer to authors and editors alike where new areas should fit in this structure.

Finance
The journals are doing reasonably well financially at the moment, and thanks to consortial deals we are not under direct threat. We should be careful about radical change. This is why I would propose maintaining our present journals in a superficial sense while reshuffling content to better define what our intentions are. I think this is possible within our consortial deals, but Pete will be the one to fill me in on this. We cannot be completely insensitive to the H factor game, but we can play it with restraint. Making sure we get the most interesting new content will achieve both our scientific aims and yield improved citation statistics.
Subscription models
The move of E to open access was a necessary and successful one, but other parts of our portfolio are going to be tougher to move. F may be a candidate, but we should move with caution. I’m far from convinced that we should implement such changes simultaneously with a general overhaul. I would be more in favor of asking Pete to start investigating the possibilities for redefined journal in terms of OA.
New journals will need careful business models. Again we need to think about how much the boat should be rocked. We want to be able to evaluate a change, and if everything moves, that may prove difficult.

coppens
Posts: 3
Joined: Tue Sep 06, 2011 2:42 am

Re: Review of Journals

Post by coppens » Tue Oct 18, 2011 8:31 pm

Gernot,

Just a quick response regarding your comments on Section Editors in anticipation of our meeting next month. You and I seem to be living in different worlds. In my experience having a sympathetic and knowledgeable Editor (and especially Section Editors who may make the decisions and set the tone) makes an enormous difference. First of all he or she understands the field, knows qualified referees and can eliminate unjustifiable reviewers comments, speed up excellent papers, make special arrangements (as I have done in the case of an outstanding paper published in Acta A, not a computer program). But I have also been at the receiving end and have learned which Editors (in non-IUCr journals) to request. The impact factor depends a lot on the quality of the paper. We may not get the best papers, but that also depends a lot on the Editors we select for the journals. Too often not those who may not be only crystallographers, but are also well known in other disciplines. That can be changed in some of the fields, including crystal engineering/supramolecular chemistry.

Philip

Peter Strickland
Posts: 12
Joined: Fri May 13, 2011 1:17 pm

Re: Review of Journals

Post by Peter Strickland » Fri Oct 21, 2011 3:33 pm

I promised some time ago to provide further information on
subscriptions/consortial sales. I have now worked with Mike Dacombe to
produce the summary below, which I hope gives a clearer picture of this
matter. I have also attached a document provided to us by Wiley-Blackwell in
2009 that describes purchasing options, allocation of revenues and licencing
for consortia. These arrangements change slightly from year to year but
represent current practice fairly closely. I have also attached an updated
forecast for 2011 that now includes income and expenditure columns for
each journal.


Consortial sales

There are 522 full subscribers with either "title-by-title" or "core"
subscriptions; in addition, a further ~3500 consortial members gain access to
our journals via an "unsubscribed collection licencing fee" or via
arrangements for developing countries. The full subscribers account for 1920
subscriptions:

124 have a subscription to 1 title
49 have subscriptions to 2 titles
42 have subscriptions to 3 titles
128 have subscriptions to 4 titles
112 have subscriptions to 5 titles
67 have a full set of subscriptions (6 titles)

6 consortial groups take 96 subscriptions between them, OhioLink being the
largest consortia group with 44 subscriptions.

Overall there are:

392 with a subscription to Acta A (£158,763)
387 with a subscription to Acta B (£170,102)
378 with a subscription to Acta C (£418,451)
357 with a subscription to Acta D (£195,618)
303 with a subscription to JAC (£140,499)
103 with a subscription to JSR (£73,383)

Of these, 122 subscribers also have print copies.


Non-consortial sales (personal and institutional)

204 with print + electronic option
189 print only
101 electronic only

155 with a subscription to Acta A (£45,834)
160 with a subscription to Acta B (£49,575)
139 with a subscription to Acta C (£118,474)
184 with a subscription to Acta D (£66,041)
157 with a subscription to JAC (£48,719)
69 with a subscription to JSR (£34,356)

Note that the totals of consortial and non-consortial income are less than those on
the forecast sheet because of additional income (back sales, offprints, sponsorship,
special-issue income etc.).
Attachments
2011 journals summary.pdf
Forecast for 2011
(329.82 KiB) Downloaded 883 times
consortia.pdf
Wiley-Blackwell report on consortia
(115.79 KiB) Downloaded 911 times

Peter Strickland
Posts: 12
Joined: Fri May 13, 2011 1:17 pm

Re: Review of Journals

Post by Peter Strickland » Wed Nov 02, 2011 8:15 am

I am posting a summary of points made by Ashwini.

Suggestions for IUCr journals from Ashwini Nangia

These are my first cut impressions after reviewing journals data, IF, number of papers, downloads statistics, classifications of various journals, etc.

1. All journals must be made ONLINE ONLY

2. Print issues for libraries, archives, display purpose only. E-journals to be promoted and made default option

3. Referencing format be made numerical (1, 2, 3, ..) instead of (author name, year). Saves space and is easier to locate a reference for readers

4. Graded levels of check cif criteria and cut offs to be applied for different journals
a. Acta C and Acta E – highest standard, no change
b. Acta B – slightly relaxed, leeway to editor so that a full study with 1 or 2 less qualified crystal structures which are part of a related family may be accepted
c. Acta A – journal identity to be changed (see below), check cif like Acta B
d. Acta F and Acta D – not an expert in macromolecular but same idea as above

5. The number of IUCr journals can be condensed to a smaller number and made more focused keeping in line current trends in crystallography
a. Acta A – to be rechristened as an all areas frontline and flagship journal of IUCR with a name like Advances in Crystallography featuring reviews, communications, full articles, perspectives, etc. Will cover everything under all IUCr commissions.
b. Acta B – no change, but can target more chemical and materials and pharmaceutical authors with a slight relaxation of cif standards as mentioned above
c. Acta C and Acta E – to be merged to a single journal with two categories of structure reports, with say titles Full reports and Short reports. It will be like a IUCr inspected sub-archive of high quality crystal structures
d. Acta D and Acta F – no changes
e. JAC and JSR to be merged as a new Acta journal with subject category Crystallography Techniques, Computing and Radiation Sources. If Acta C and E are merged, and D and F renamed in alphabetical order, then this will become new Acta F

6. Timelines in review process can be shortened in a number of ways. The biggest and best bonus for editors is reward linked to number of papers handled and average number of days taken to process manuscript, e.g. when they attend Journals Committee and IUCr Congress meeting

7. A general comment is that currently the best in crystallography may not qualify to be published in an IUCr journal. This is tragic and must be rectified. An example is a recent paper entitled Crystallographic Realization of the Mathematically Predicted Densest All-Pentagon Packing Lattice by C5-Symmetric “Sticky” Fluoropentamers published in Angew Chem 2011 10612 DOI: 10.1002/anie.201101553. The R factor is R1 (0.1495) and wR2 (0.2957). A check cif obviously raises many red alerts. But it is crystallography.

Peter Strickland
Posts: 12
Joined: Fri May 13, 2011 1:17 pm

Re: Review of Journals

Post by Peter Strickland » Fri Nov 04, 2011 3:28 pm

I am writing to let you know that I have updated my previous post with subscription information, and am also providing additional information in a table in the attachment that may help in assessing the financial risk if a journal was closed.

Thus, the table gives an idea of direct revenue loss if a journal were to be closed, together with the revenue that might also be at risk (i.e. revenue in packages that contain that journal and would likely be subject to review by librarians).

As an example, if Section A were to be closed, the direct loss in revenue from subscriptions would be £204,596; in addition, packages containing Section A (A+B+C, A+B+C+D and full) would potentially be at risk. The total value of these packages is £1094991. It would be pessimistic to think that the total loss of income would be at this level, but equally the loss would more than likely be higher than the value of the direct subscription income alone.

Note that direct subscription and consortial income is included in the above figures.
Attachments
income breakdown.pdf
(24.23 KiB) Downloaded 893 times

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