The latest impact factors (for 2007) have just been released from Thomson Reuters. They are as follows:
PLoS Biology - 13.5
PLoS Medicine - 12.6
PLoS Computational Biology - 6.2
PLoS Genetics - 8.7
PLoS Pathogens - 9.3
As we and others have frequently pointed out, impact factors should be interpreted with caution ... Nevertheless, the 2007 figures for PLoS Biology and PLoS Medicine are consistent with the many other indicators ... that these journals are firmly established as top-flight open-access general interest journals ...
The increases in the impact factors for the discipline-based, community-run PLoS journals also tally with indicators that these journals are going from strength to strength. For example, submissions to PLoS Computational Biology, PLoS Genetics and PLoS Pathogens have almost doubled over the past year ...
Another measure of impact is media coverage, and all of our journals routinely attract substantial media attention, which reflects the importance and public interest of much of the work that is published. ...
Although Thomson is yet to index our two youngest journals, other indexing databases are. ... Using Google Scholar, for example, one can find that the article by Neal Fahlgren and coauthors, about the cataloguing of an important class of RNA in plants and one of the most highly cited PLoS ONE articles so far has been cited 42 times - strong evidence that good research, even if published in a new journal, will rapidly find its place in the scientific record when it’s made freely available to all.
Posted by
Gavin Baker at 6/18/2008 05:14:00 PM.
The open access movement:
Putting peer-reviewed scientific and scholarly literature
on the internet. Making it available free of charge and
free of most copyright and licensing restrictions.
Removing the barriers to serious research.
I recommend the OA tracking project (OATP) as the best way to stay on top of new OA developments. You can read the OATP feed on a blog-like web page or subscribe to it by RSS, email, or Twitter. You can also help build the feed by tagging new developments you encounter.
