Cites & Insights 16:3 (April 2016) available

The April 2016 Cites & Insights (16:3) is now available for downloading at http://citesandinsights.info/civ16i3.pdf

That print-oriented version is 30 pages long.

If you're planning to read online or on an ereader, you may prefer the single-column 6" x 9" version, 59 pages long, available at http://citesandinsights.info/civ16i3on.pdf

While much of this issue has appeared as a series of posts in this blog, the final section of the lead essay is new, as is the fourth essay; the final section reprints 35 pages of The Gold OA Landscape 2011-2014 to serve as context for a portion of the first essay.

This issue includes:

The Front: Gold Open Access Journals 2011-2015: A SPARC Project pp. 1-8

Remember the "watch this space" note in the February-March "The Front"? This is what it was about. This essay includes the key announcement, a partial list of changes from the 2011-2014 project, a partial checkpoint prepared when I was halfway through the first pass, a section asking for possible "changes for the better" in the analysis and writeup (note that this year's PDF ebook will be free and OA, since it's a SPARC-sponsored project), another section discussing the planned anonymization of the (free) spreadsheet when analysis is done--and, new to this issue, a second checkpoint prepared at the end of the first journal pass.

The Front (also): Readership Notes pp. 8-9

Notes on the most frequently downloaded issues in Volume 15 and the most frequently downloaded issues overall.

Intersections: "Trust Me": The Other Problem with Beall's Lists pp. 9-11

As far as I can tell, Jeffrey Beall provides no evidence whatsoever--not even his classic "this publisher has a funny name"--for seven out of eight journals and publishers on his 2016 lists. This piece, which has a little additional material beyond the original post, goes into some detail.

The Back pp. 11-12

Not precisely filler to get an even number of pages, but...OK, so these three mini-rants are mostly filler to get an even number of pages.

The Gold OA Landscape 2011-2014, pp. 39-73 following page 12

I'm including chapters 5 (starting dates), 6 (country of publication), 7 (segments and subjects), 8 (biology and medicine) and 9 (biology) to provide more context for my invitation to suggest better ways to analyze and present the 2011-2015 data. Please note that these pages appear precisely as they would in the PDF ebook if you're looking at the online 6" x 9" version (since the book's 6"x9"), but are reduced very slightly for the print-oriented version (to 5.5"x8.5") so that two book pages will fit on one printed page.

Next issue?

I did not label this the April-May 2016 issue. Whether there's a May issue in late April or early May, or a May-June issue later in May, depends on a number of factors having mostly to do with Gold Open Access Journals 2011-2015.