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Citation Analysis: Tools for finding who's citing you and calculating journal impact

Citation analysis plays a pivotal role in faculty tenure, promotion and hiring decisions in academic institutions.

Part 3: Predatory Publishing and Bogus Impact Factors

The ugly side of academic publishing is the snares and traps that must be dodged in order to find legitimate, scholarly, highly ranked publications in which to publish.  Predatory open-access publishers charge authors a fee to publish their articles in so called “scholarly” journals.  Because these journals are not legitimate, they do not have the journal rankings that other scholarly (legitimate) journals do and can easily be exposed as fraudulent.   However, we now see companies popping up to remedy this problem.  There are 3 companies that will, for a fee award bogus impact factors to low quality journals.  1. Journal Impact Factor (Global Institute for Scientific Information) 2. Global Impact Factor (Institute for Information Resources) 3. Universal Impact Factor    For Jeffrey Beall's list of questionable companies that purport to provide valid scholarly metrics at the researcher, article, or journal level click here: https://archive.fo/tAOfX

Jeffrey Beall is a librarian at the University of Colorado, see Jeffrey’s important list of Predatory Publishers: https://archive.fo/6EByy    For a list of questionable, scholarly open-access standalone journals click here: https://archive.fo/9MAAD

If you are ever in doubt about a journal or publisher, do not hesitate to check Jeffrey Beall’s list of predatory publishers.  You should also routinely check the library database: Cabell’s Directory (scholarly journals)  http://libguides.pace.edu/az.php?a=c     A good resource for verification of scholarly journals and Ulrich's Periodicals Directory.  Call Beekman Library for a quick lookup in Ulrich's (212)346-1331  or email Michelle Lang: mlang@pace.edu      

Quality Journals

The Journal Quality List is a collation of journal rankings from a variety of sources compiled and edited by Dr. Anne-Wil Harzing creator of the Publish or Perish (PoP) software. See link below. The purpose of her list is to assist academics in targeting journals of appropriate standards.  This is a great resource for any academic seeking information about the quality of a particular journal.

Ulrich's Web

The library just bought access to the database Ulrich’s Web.  Tenure track faculty can now obtain the most comprehensive journal coverage with the click of their mouse.  Faculty can find details about scholarly, Open Access, business and niche journals across all subject areas and find out instantly whether these journals are peer-reviewed.  Faculty who are looking for a possible list of peer-reviewed journals in a particular discipline can use Ulrich’s Web with over 300,000 journals, 900 subject areas in 200 languages.  To access this database from the Pace Library website click here:

http://libguides.pace.edu/az.php?a=u