Probably is and probably isn't. I wrote a paper some years ago which eventually was published and the journal is SCI listed. Our paper contained some keyword like monads and n-categories and stuff, and we liked the paper, we still do. The reviewers didn't always, but the editor eventually took the decision. In correspondence with the editor it was like "... even if only a few in the world will understand, it is not a reason not to publish ...". I should say that the editor (thanks again!, if you read this, and my apologies for using our correspondence as an example) saw the potential for applications as well, which the reviewers did not. Once in a while I communicate within the most theoretical communicates. I feel humble and I realize how little I know, and I want to build upon that. On the other hand, I want to build things that are useful, that improves the world around me a little bit further. And I want to combine the two! Certainly, and please do not stand up and go just yet, certainly categorists are doing great and also very very useful things. But simply, is it enough? Can we do more? Do we reach out? Why are computations efficient? Because we have grids. Why do aeroplanes fly. Because we have matrices. And so on. It would be nice to hear something like: How did we save global economy? With categories. By the way, can anyone point at some category theory success stories, that could be explained in evening news? Patrik On Wed, 3 Dec 2008, John Baez wrote:

Dear category theorists -

Thomson Scientific runs the well-known "Science Citation Index", which "provides researchers, administrators, faculty, and students with quick, powerful access to the bibliographic and citation information they need to find relevant, comprehensive research data". I believe data from this index is used in tenure and promotion decisions at some universities.

I just heard that "Theory and Applications of Categories" and "Cahiers" are not listed on the Science Citation Index, while - for example - Elsevier's journal "Homeopathy" is listed there.

Is this true? Is there some way to improve the situation?

Best, jb

John Baez wrote:

I just heard that "Theory and Applications of Categories" and "Cahiers" are not listed on the Science Citation Index, while - for example - Elsevier's journal "Homeopathy" is listed there.

That would be the one with one character per issue printed among 128 blank sheets, right? -Robert Dawson

Considering the AMS's attitude to category theory, I assume that this is what they meant to do. Michael On Thu, 4 Dec 2008, George Janelidze wrote:

Dear Colleagues,

I think John asks a very good question! However:

While the Thomson Scientific's "Science Citation Index" could be related to some commercial matters that I do not understand, Mathematical Reviews in just Mathematical Reviews,

and for each of us it has "Author Profile",

and among other things it gives you the total number of citations on your papers,

and if you click on "Citations", it lists citations,

and below the list there is "Reference List Journals",

and if you click on that, you will see a lot of journal titles,

but not "Theory and Applications of Categories", not "Cahiers", and not "Applied Categorical Structures".

That is, according to Mathematical Reviews, the citations in Category Theory journals are not citations!

I am sure this is not what Mathematical Reviews really wanted to do, and that it must be corrected first of all.

George Janelidze

----- Original Message ----- From: "John Baez" <john.c.baez@gmail.com> To: <categories@mta.ca> Sent: Wednesday, December 03, 2008 7:23 PM Subject: categories: Science Citation Index

...

Dear category theorists -

Thomson Scientific runs the well-known "Science Citation Index", which "provides researchers, administrators, faculty, and students with quick, powerful access to the bibliographic and citation information they need to find relevant, comprehensive research data". I believe data from this index is used in tenure and promotion decisions at some universities.

I just heard that "Theory and Applications of Categories" and "Cahiers" are not listed on the Science Citation Index, while - for example - Elsevier's journal "Homeopathy" is listed there.

Is this true? Is there some way to improve the situation?

Best, jb

On Thu, 4 Dec 2008, jim stasheff wrote:

Michael,

at least in the old days, multiauthor papers were listed only once e.g. Milnor and Stasheff only under Milnor

jim

I haven't looked recently, but that was the way it was when I used it. It was a way of finding where a subject had gone, not who had led it there. This is a total misuse of the index. Michael

Dear All, I did some investigation on this in 2003, but never got round to writing an article for the Notices AMS as was proposed. I wrote to journals on the EMS list and asked their opinion of ISI. Some of the opinions were quite scathing. As Michael notes, dealing with ISI is like hitting a blank wall. What ISI are trying to do is a little like Readers Digest: as ISI claim, they give the `Essential Science'. In practice, it seems they quickly put on their list journals from publishers (Homeopathy; Chaos, Solitons, Fractals;. ...) but put up all sorts of barriers to new independent journals. What does this show about the real aims of ISI? They claim to have an assessment procedure for new journals, but what this procedure is remains undisclosed. More discussion is given by Richard Poynder: I wrote about this topic recently (http://poynder.blogspot.com/2008/11/open-access-question-of-quality_21.html). This might also interest you, as it suggests there is a growing perception of the need to move beyond the impact factor: http://scienceblogs.com/clock/2008/11/why_does_impact_factor_persist.php It is not in ISI interests to take on more journals (more work, what reward?). It may be that they are using old technology (pre-Google?). I looked on the Thomsons/ISI board once and found no academic representation. It is not clear that they have the expertise to do the job they claim to do. Unfortunately, many countreis accept their claims, and it is administratively convenient so to do. A report by Charles Goldie for the LMS writes: " The last few paragraphs suggest one general point, not specific to mathematics, that I hope the CMS response can take up, which is that the citation studies planned by HEFCE to be its main indicators depend on data from a private overseas corporation with no responsi­bility to the UK whatsoever. The way the data are organised by the Thomson Corporation (choice of fields, selection of journals for inclusion, allocation to fields) has considerable prior consequences for what it is feasible to do with the data, and hence for what indicators HEFCE or their agents might wish to employ. For the research future of this country to be determined to a large extent in this way is absolutely craven, and seems to me simply shame­ful." Thus there is considerable doubt that ISI are doing what could be called a professional academic job, though it might be called `professional' if the aim is simply to make money from data organised in a way whose toxic potentiality is not easily open to view. Charles wrote to me: "As you'll see, part of what I found was that Thomson Scientific's classification of journals into fields has no coherence or logic. Algebra Colloquium is classed as Applied Mathematics!" The other point is that `great oaks from little acorns grow'. A new but vital area may have little `impact factor'. ISI procedures, and their acceptance for research evaluation, are unfavourable to new initiatives, and trends. Unfortunately, the discussion of how mathematics progresses, and how new ideas grow, the context, is not usually part of the study of mathematics for students, and my impression is there is little developed language to cope with this. (Music degrees allow for study of performance, musicology, composition, ..Can we learn from this?) See discussion in various articles on www.bangor.ac.uk/r.brown/publar.html particularly perhaps `The methodology of mathematics'. Comments and argument welcome! But I have found the views of `top people' (in the UK, FRS's) can be very naive, the `Groupoids is rubbish' school of thought, or `the van Kampen programme is a ridiculous programme', etc., etc. If anyone would like more information to pursue this ISI matter, I am happy to help. My problem is that I have some writing priorities and am a bit too old to divert my attention too much. But obviously it is bad news for the progress of mathematics if the EC is taken in by what ISI themselves say they do, rather than by an analysis of what they actually do. Please forward this to the EC if it might help! Ronnie

Hello category theorists, just to report that in Spain, Thomson's Science Citation Index is now the main measure of quality of publication in mathematics: every report and application has to indicate impact factor(*) and citation count(**) of all one's papers -- and papers in journals not indexed (or in conference proceedings) simply don't count as papers! As a concrete example, I received last year an evalutation from the Ministry of Science and Education explicitly telling me that I need to improve the number of papers published in indexed journals. (*) Impact factor is really a silly measure for quality: for example many learned societies distribute papers into several different journals only according to length but using otherwise the same criteria for acceptance, whereas those different journals can have very different impact factors in Thomson's index. (It may interest some of you that the Elsevier journal CHAOS SOLITONS & FRACTALS edited by El Naschie has a higher impact factor than Annals of Mathematics.) (**) Of course the citation count is Thomson's count, which counts only citations from Thomson indexed papers, and even fails to identify preprint citations to papers later indexed. (E.g. paper A cites preprint B. When B is published in an indexed journal the citation from A does not count.) It has a very bad effect, especially on young researchers, who have to follow the rules of Thomson's and Ministry's game, and look up impact factors before choosing which journal to submit to, instead of following scientific criteria. Furthermore, access to Thomson's database is not free. (The Spanish Ministry has paid access for all Spanish universities, instead of using that money to fund research.) It is more than likely that Thomson is affiliated in some way with Elsevier and other publishing houses -- in any case they share the same goals of extracting money from science budgets -- and therefore free journals represent a threat, and it is not very likely that any free electronical journal will be included in Thomson's index. It did happen with 'Geometry & Topology', though... I agree with George that it is important to get TAC and Cahiers into the AMS citation database. This should be possible just by scientific reasons. Before that happens I think there is not much hope to enter Thomson's index... The real problem is to convince science foundations and other funding agencies to boycott Thomson. Just getting more and more good journals into Thomson's index is not going to help with that :-( Gettting the categories journals into the AMS citation database will help providing a strong alternative to Thomson. Cheers, Joachim. ---------------------------------------------------------------- Joachim Kock <kock@mat.uab.cat> Departament de Matemàtiques -- Universitat Autònoma de Barcelona Edifici C -- 08193 Bellaterra (Barcelona) -- ESPANYA Phone: +34 93 581 25 34 Fax: +34 93 581 27 90 ----------------------------------------------------------------

On the subject of the ISI citation index, I wonder if what is being done is consistent with anti-trust laws in the USA and with fair competition laws in the EU. The refusal of Thomson's to accept reputable journals and also to justify their refusal looks to me to be suspect on legal grounds. Does any one know of any legal challenges to this. It may be that the EMS and AMS should start a ridicularising campaign. Public money n many countries is going to a so-called service that is not being performed at a professional level. Tim Quoting Joachim Kock <kock@mat.uab.cat>:

Hello category theorists,

just to report that in Spain, Thomson's Science Citation Index is now the main measure of quality of publication in mathematics: every report and application has to indicate impact factor(*) and citation count(**) of all one's papers -- and papers in journals not indexed (or in conference proceedings) simply don't count as papers! As a concrete example, I received last year an evalutation from the Ministry of Science and Education explicitly telling me that I need to improve the number of papers published in indexed journals.

(*) Impact factor is really a silly measure for quality: for example many learned societies distribute papers into several different journals only according to length but using otherwise the same criteria for acceptance, whereas those different journals can have very different impact factors in Thomson's index. (It may interest some of you that the Elsevier journal CHAOS SOLITONS & FRACTALS edited by El Naschie has a higher impact factor than Annals of Mathematics.)

(**) Of course the citation count is Thomson's count, which counts only citations from Thomson indexed papers, and even fails to identify preprint citations to papers later indexed. (E.g. paper A cites preprint B. When B is published in an indexed journal the citation from A does not count.)

It has a very bad effect, especially on young researchers, who have to follow the rules of Thomson's and Ministry's game, and look up impact factors before choosing which journal to submit to, instead of following scientific criteria.

Furthermore, access to Thomson's database is not free. (The Spanish Ministry has paid access for all Spanish universities, instead of using that money to fund research.) It is more than likely that Thomson is affiliated in some way with Elsevier and other publishing houses -- in any case they share the same goals of extracting money from science budgets -- and therefore free journals represent a threat, and it is not very likely that any free electronical journal will be included in Thomson's index. It did happen with 'Geometry & Topology', though...

I agree with George that it is important to get TAC and Cahiers into the AMS citation database. This should be possible just by scientific reasons. Before that happens I think there is not much hope to enter Thomson's index...

The real problem is to convince science foundations and other funding agencies to boycott Thomson. Just getting more and more good journals into Thomson's index is not going to help with that :-(

Gettting the categories journals into the AMS citation database will help providing a strong alternative to Thomson.

Cheers, Joachim.

---------------------------------------------------------------- Joachim Kock <kock@mat.uab.cat> Departament de Matemàtiques -- Universitat Autònoma de Barcelona Edifici C -- 08193 Bellaterra (Barcelona) -- ESPANYA Phone: +34 93 581 25 34 Fax: +34 93 581 27 90 ----------------------------------------------------------------

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Ronnie, The AMS staff shoudl be doing this. May I forward your msg to them or just suggest they get on the ball? jim Brown wrote:

Dear All,

I did some investigation on this in 2003, but never got round to writing an article for the Notices AMS as was proposed.

I wrote to journals on the EMS list and asked their opinion of ISI. Some of the opinions were quite scathing. As Michael notes, dealing with ISI is like hitting a blank wall.

What ISI are trying to do is a little like Readers Digest: as ISI claim, they give the `Essential Science'. In practice, it seems they quickly put on their list journals from publishers (Homeopathy; Chaos, Solitons, Fractals;. ...) but put up all sorts of barriers to new independent journals. What does this show about the real aims of ISI?

They claim to have an assessment procedure for new journals, but what this procedure is remains undisclosed.

More discussion is given by Richard Poynder:

I wrote about this topic recently (http://poynder.blogspot.com/2008/11/open-access-question-of-quality_21.html).

This might also interest you, as it suggests there is a growing perception of the need to move beyond the impact factor:

http://scienceblogs.com/clock/2008/11/why_does_impact_factor_persist.php

It is not in ISI interests to take on more journals (more work, what reward?). It may be that they are using old technology (pre-Google?).

I looked on the Thomsons/ISI board once and found no academic representation. It is not clear that they have the expertise to do the job they claim to do. Unfortunately, many countreis accept their claims, and it is administratively convenient so to do.

A report by Charles Goldie for the LMS writes:

" The last few paragraphs suggest one general point, not specific to mathematics, that I hope the CMS response can take up, which is that the citation studies planned by HEFCE to be its main indicators depend on data from a private overseas corporation with no responsi­bility to the UK whatsoever. The way the data are organised by the Thomson Corporation (choice of fields, selection of journals for inclusion, allocation to fields) has considerable prior consequences for what it is feasible to do with the data, and hence for what indicators HEFCE or their agents might wish to employ. For the research future of this country to be determined to a large extent in this way is absolutely craven, and seems to me simply shame­ful."

Thus there is considerable doubt that ISI are doing what could be called a professional academic job, though it might be called `professional' if the aim is simply to make money from data organised in a way whose toxic potentiality is not easily open to view.

Charles wrote to me:

"As you'll see, part of what I found was that Thomson Scientific's classification of journals into fields has no coherence or logic. Algebra Colloquium is classed as Applied Mathematics!"

The other point is that `great oaks from little acorns grow'. A new but vital area may have little `impact factor'. ISI procedures, and their acceptance for research evaluation, are unfavourable to new initiatives, and trends.

Unfortunately, the discussion of how mathematics progresses, and how new ideas grow, the context, is not usually part of the study of mathematics for students, and my impression is there is little developed language to cope with this. (Music degrees allow for study of performance, musicology, composition, ..Can we learn from this?) See discussion in various articles on www.bangor.ac.uk/r.brown/publar.html particularly perhaps `The methodology of mathematics'. Comments and argument welcome! But I have found the views of `top people' (in the UK, FRS's) can be very naive, the `Groupoids is rubbish' school of thought, or `the van Kampen programme is a ridiculous programme', etc., etc.

If anyone would like more information to pursue this ISI matter, I am happy to help. My problem is that I have some writing priorities and am a bit too old to divert my attention too much.

But obviously it is bad news for the progress of mathematics if the EC is taken in by what ISI themselves say they do, rather than by an analysis of what they actually do. Please forward this to the EC if it might help!

Ronnie

Pedro, It's just so easy for a bureaucrat to be able to back up an arbitrary decison by pointing to an `impact factor' jim Resende wrote:

As an example of how some governments may indeed be tempted to use ISI information for tenure and promotion decision, Iet me mention what happened in Portugal some years ago. There was a short-lived social- democrat government in Portugal whose science minister (a professor from IST's mechanical engineering department) proposed to base the evaluation of scientific production on a simple formula. The formula originally included niceties such as requiring every scientist, whatever his field, to publish an average of four papers per year --- ranging from social sciences to chemistry (!!!) More, these papers were supposed to be published in ISI cited papers.

A series of fierce complaints from the portuguese scientific community followed, in an attempt at least to fix the formula by providing realistic expectations regarding average numbers of publications according to field. The requirement that publications be ISI-indexed was probably going to be retained, though, except that the government was short-lived and the whole evaluation system was swiftly (and fortunately) replaced by a more effective peer review system.

About that time I learned from Ronnie Brown that he had had some correspondence with Eugene Garfield (the founder of ISI) and in particular had mentioned to him how SCI seemed to be used in some countries in order to assess scientific production. Garfield's reply was crisp and clear: "The SCI was not designed for that purpose" (these may not have been the exact words, but it was the spirit as far as I remember).

Why some governments will insist on (mis)using such a commercial tool is not completely clear. My guess is that in some cases this is a consequence of lack of understanding of how science works, on the part some political decision makers. Certainly the need to cut on expenses must play a role, too.

Best, Pedro.

On Dec 3, 2008, at 5:23 PM, John Baez wrote:

...

Dear category theorists -

Thomson Scientific runs the well-known "Science Citation Index", which "provides researchers, administrators, faculty, and students with quick, powerful access to the bibliographic and citation information they need to find relevant, comprehensive research data". I believe data from this index is used in tenure and promotion decisions at some universities.

I just heard that "Theory and Applications of Categories" and "Cahiers" are not listed on the Science Citation Index, while - for example - Elsevier's journal "Homeopathy" is listed there.

Is this true? Is there some way to improve the situation?

Best, jb

On Friday 05 December 2008, Tim Porter wrote:

On the subject of the ISI citation index, : : It may be that the EMS and AMS should start a ridicularising campaign.  

Mathematical Structures in Computer Science (MSCS), a Cambridge UP journal, is soon going to publish an Editors' note: Bibliometrics and the curators of orthodoxy ftp://ftp.di.ens.fr/pub/users/longo/editorsMSCS.pdf This firm critique of Bibliometrics contains also references to several documents on the issue, in particular an excellent text by the Intermational Mathematics Union. Best Giuseppe Longo Editro-in-chief http://www.di.ens.fr/users/longo

I am responding to Vaughan's long message (which I won't bother repeating). The AMS has set up its own citation index but we have seen that they too will not include TAC (I am not sure about Cahiers). They have a long-standing and apparently immutable prejudice against category theory and nothing can change that. As for a field as small as category theory setting up its own index, that would seem to be a non-starter. Even if we were to do it, the bureaucrats of the EC would not accept since it would be seen as self-serving. After reading that the Springer journal Homeopathy is indexed, I began to wonder if the publisher pays ISI for inclusion. I am sure that this kind of information is kept secret. (Actually, Robert Dawson has wildly exaggerated the publication of Homeopathy: the truth is that one out of every 10^{100} numbers contains one pixel of ink and the remaining issues are blank.)