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July 28, 2005
PLoS Genetics Launched - Major New Open Access Journal
PLoS Genetics is a new open-access journal from the Public Library of Science (PLoS). Led by an internationally recognized editorial board with broad knowledge and expertise, PLoS Genetics is a journal that celebrates the research of the greater genetics and genomics community. PLoS Genetics will publish articles that reflect the full breadth and interdisciplinary nature of this research, all free to read and to use in your own research and teaching.
Other PLoS titles: PLoS Biology, PLoS Medicine, and PLoS Computational Biology.
Access PLoS Genetics.
Posted by at 11:03 AM
Journal Citation Reports: 2004 data now available
The 2004 data is now available for Journal Citation Reports. Among other stats, this means the 2004 Impact Factors for the journals indexed by ISI are now available.
What does this mean, "2004 Impact Factors"? The Impact Factor is value that is often used as a measure of the worth of a journal. It is calculated from the number of articles that where published in 2004 that cited articles published in 2003 or 2002 in a particular journal. The higher an Impact Factor, the more cited a journal is, and, presumably, the higher it's impact (importance) in a particular field. Many squabble with the way IFs, but they are often used as a measure of the worth of a journal!
JCR also has been upgraded with enhancements that expand its analytical capabilities beyond the journal level to include categories, making it easier for users to spot trends in journal coverage and facilitate collection management decisions.
Enhancements include:
- Category level analysis — Much of the same statistical information available for individual journals is now available for journal categories, for data from 2003 forward. This provides a view of coverage, citation behavior and relationships across an entire subject. Cited Category and Citing Category lists show the most frequently cited journals in the subject. This information helps put a journal's impact factor into context.
- At the journal level, the Source Data table for items now includes "other" to account for non-scholarly items like news, commentaries, and editorial material — which makes it possible to understand more accurately the size and content of a publication.
- Headings have changed from "Country" to "Country and Territory", making geographic representation more accurate.
- Category scope notes are now edition- and year-specific, which ensures that scope notes most accurately reflect the content of each category.
Posted by at 10:40 AM
July 22, 2005
NCBI Lecture and Hands-On Computer Workshops
The UIUC Biotechnology Information Center, a virtual branch of the UIUC Library, and the Roy J. Carver Biotechnology Center are hosting the NCBI Field Guide to GenBank and NCBI Molecular Biology Resources, a lecture and hands-on computer workshop, September 22 - 23, 2005. The series will cover the effective use of Genbank and related databases, the BLAST similarity search engine, genome data, and related resources available from the NCBI. Biologists on the User Services staff of the National Center for Biotechnology Information will provide the instruction.
Posted by at 11:25 AM