By: Ellen Finnie

Nature announced on December 8 that Elsevier has launched a new journal quality index, called CiteScore, which will be based on Elsevier’s Scopus citation database and will compete with the longstanding and influential Journal Impact Factor (IF).

Conflict of interest

One can hardly fault Elsevier for producing this metric, which is well positioned to compete with the Impact Factor. But for researchers and librarians, there are serious concerns about CiteScore. Having a for-profit entity that is also a journal publisher in charge of a journal publication metric creates a conflict of interest, and is inherently problematic. The eigenfactor team Carl T. Bergstrom and Jevin West have done some early analysis of how Elsevier journals tend to rank via CiteScore versus the Impact Factor, and conclude that “Elsevier journals are getting just over a 25% boost relative to what we would expect given their Impact Factor scores.” Looking at journals other than Nature journals – which take quite a hit under the CiteScore because of what Phil Davis refers to as Citescore’s “overt biases against journals that publish a lot of front-matter” — Elsevier journals still get a boost (15%) in comparison with Impact Factor.

Perpetuating problems of journal prestige in promotion and tenure

But more broadly, the appearance of another measure of journal impact reinforces existing problems with the scholarly publishing market, where journal brand as a proxy for research quality drives promotion and tenure decisions. This tying of professional advancement, including grant awards, to publication in a small number of high prestige publications contributes to monopoly power and resulting hyperinflation in the scholarly publishing market. Indeed, I was recently informed by a large commercial journal publisher that a journal’s Impact Factor is a key consideration in setting the price increase for that title—and was the first reason mentioned to justify increases.

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Janine Mauzeroll is an associate professor at McGill University, where she leads a research group focused on topics ranging from electrochemistry in organic and biological media to electronically-conducting polymers. Her work combines experimental and theoretical electrochemical methods and applies them to biomedical and industrial problems such as multidrug resistance in human cancer cells, neurotransmitter release, biosensor design, and high-speed scanning electrochemical microscopy. Mauzeroll has recently been named a new technical editor of the Journal of The Electrochemical Society, concentrating in the Organic & Bioelectrochemistry Topical Interest Area.

What do you hope to accomplish in your role as Technical Editor?
I see no greater need than the one related to the promotion of fundamental research as a necessary partner to applied and industry driven science. As Technical Editor, I will put emphasis on complete experimental and full disclosures to generate “go to” manuscripts.

Moving forward, I hope to convince established researchers to continue sending in manuscripts by offering them visibility, such as special issues in or keynote addresses at symposiums. We need to seek out new researchers and deliver on our promise to provide a respectful and efficient review.

How has the rise of open access changed the current scholarly publishing model?
The rise of open access is a game changer and step forward for science. Strongly influenced by funding agencies, who have financed the publishing costs related to figures, covers and, general publishing costs, it is now a requirement in several countries that all publicly funded research be open access. In removing this budgetary constraints, we promote a publishing model focused on a desired target audience and impact.

Additionally, ECS’s Free the Science initiative will lead to a more general access to reliable and good scientific information, which is a basic requirement for further innovation and discoveries. In removing these constraints, more resources are being diverted to supporting the pillars of our research: students and fellows. Knowledge sharing basically forces us to move away from our protectionism inclinations and focus on our next great idea.

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Three new Editors’ Choice articles have been published recently in the Journal of The Electrochemical Society (JES) and ECS Journal of Solid State Science and Technology (JSS).

An Editors’ Choice article is a special designation applied by the Journals’ Editorial Board to any article type. Editors’ Choice articles are transformative and represent a substantial advance or discovery, either experimental or theoretical. The work must show a new direction, a new concept, a new way of doing something, a new interpretation, or a new field, and not merely preliminary data.

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ECS Technical Editor Dr. Gerald Frankel, accompanied by ECS’s Executive Director Roque Calvo, hosted our first ever “Ask Me Anything” (AMA) on Reddit’s r/science. The event gathered over 2,000 upvotes and more than 100 comments. We did this in honor of Open Access Week 2016 (Oct. 24-30), as a means of having an open dialogue regarding Free the Science, ECS’s effort to keep money in scientific research rather than in the publishing industry.

For about an hour Frankel and Calvo fielded questions on topics ranging from Open Access and the staggering cost of APCs, to failed Youtube experiments and electric car batteries.

You can read the whole thing on Reddit, or check out an archived version on The Winnower.

And don’t forget, the 132,000 articles and abstracts in the ECS Digital Library will be available free of charge Oct. 24-30.

Have a question that wasn’t answered? Feel free to reach out to us at OA@electrochem.org.

ECS shows its vision for the future of academic publishing

ECS is celebrating Open Access Week this year by giving the world a preview of what complete open access will look like. From October 24th through October 30th, we are taking down the paywall to the ECS Digital Library, making over 132,000 scientific articles and abstracts free and accessible to anyone.

Eliminating the paywall during Open Access Week is a preview of ECS’s Free the Science initiative; a business-model changing plan with the goal of making the entire ECS Digital Library open access by 2024. ECS believes that the opening and democratizing of this information will lead to rapid advances in discoveries ranging from renewable energy to clean water and sanitation.

“ECS has one core goal: to disseminate this scientific research to the broadest possible audience without barriers,” says Mary Yess, ECS Deputy Executive Director and Chief Content Officer. “The research of our authors has the ability to address some of the most critical issues across the globe, and we believe paywalls should not impede progress.”

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Open Access Week is fast upon us, and this year’s theme is “Open in Action.” ECS’s participation in Open Access Week is a preview of our vision to Free the Science, a future where authors can publish with us for free and readers can access our Digital Library without paywalls (find out more about what we’re doing to celebrate).

In the spirit of this year’s theme, ECS has created a list  of “action items” to help you make the most of the week:

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Pioneering nanocarbons researcher Harry Kroto passed away on April 30, 2016 at the age of 76. A giant among giants, Kroto made an immense impact on ECS and its scientific discipline as well as the world at large. Because of this, an upcoming focus issue of the ECS Journal of Solid State Science and Technology honors the memory of Kroto, who is best known for his role in discovering that pure carbon can exist in the form of a hollow soccer ball-shaped molecule named the “buckminsterfullerene” (“buckyball” for short).

“Harry Kroto’s passing is a great loss to science and society as a whole,” says Bruce Weisman, guest editor of the focus issue. “He was an exceptional researcher whose 1985 work with Rick Smalley and Bob Curl launched the field of nanocarbons research and nanotechnology.”

Subsequent studies of carbon nanostructures have uncovered scientific phenomena and developed novel materials that promise myriad applications ranging from energy harvesting and drug delivery to high performance composites. Research in this field continues to fill the pages of scholarly journals, making possible innovations that were not even conceived before the seminal work.

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David Cliffel is the Professor of Chemistry & Department Chair at Vanderbilt University, where he leads research on the electrochemistry and analytical chemistry of nanoparticles and photosynthetic proteins. He has recently become a new Technical Editor for the Journal of The Electrochemical Society, concentrating in the Physical and Analytical Electrochemistry, Electrocatalysis, and Photoelectrochemistry Topical Interest Area.

What do you hope to accomplish as the new Technical Editor of JES?
I’d like to improve the connection between what’s happening – as far as vibrant science – at the meetings and have that reflected in the quality of the papers in the journal. I think my role is really to facilitate the extension of the quality of the meetings into the journals.

How important is the peer-review process to the integrity of scientific publications?
Peer-review is the heart of how science gets evaluated and how important discoveries get communicated to the rest of us. The review process is still the best method we have of being able to evaluate the quality and importance of what’s really happening in our field. The reviewers are a critical part, and in JES, the key aspect is that our reviewers are in electrochemistry and that may or may not be the case in any other journal. One of our greatest assets is the quality of our reviewers’ knowledge in electrochemistry.

What kind of impact have you seen open access have on academic publishing?
Open access really has expanded the rest of the world’s ability to access high-quality journals. It’s also opened up technical papers to a larger part of the scientific audience and expanded what the audience is reading. That has been a very exciting thing. My open access papers are getting read by high school students and I’m getting emails from high school teachers about what’s the new paper that just came out in an area they happen to be searching in. Open access drives scientific knowledge and the spread of scientific knowledge to people who never had access before.

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The last week of October is International Open Access Week. As ECS did last year, we are celebrating by giving the world a preview of what complete open access will look like when we have completed our Free the Science campaign. From October 24th through October 30th we are taking down the paywall to the ECS Digital Library. Over 132,000 articles will be freely available to anyone who wants to read them.

We had great success with this last year. During Open Access Week the Journal of The Electrochemical Society saw a 51% increase in usage.

Please spread the word. From October 24th through the 30th anyone will be able to read any of the content in our digital library for free.  We hope to make this the “norm” in the future through our Free the Science initiative.

The Electrochemical Society is pleased to announce, as part of the on-going ECS Monograph Series, the publication of two new editions of ECS monographs, published by John Wiley & Sons, Inc.

Please join ECS in welcoming authors Christofer Leygraf, Mark Orazem, and Bernard Tribollet, as they sign copies of their monographs on Wednesday, October 5, 2016, 1830h in Hall 2, HCC, followed by a short Q+A session and book raffle! Two copies of each of the below monographs will be raffled off (must be present during the book signing to win)! Drop your business cards off at the ECS Publications booth any time during Registration hours in order to enter to win a copy of these monographs!

Atmospheric Corrosion, Second Edition, by Christofer Leygraf, Inger Odnevall Wallinder, Johan Tidblad, and Thomas Graedel

Electrochemical Impedance Spectroscopy, Second Edition, by Mark Orazem and Bernard Tribollet

Questions? Please contact bethanne.stuebe@electrochem.org