March 2013

Microsoft Word – march2013_final.docx

Council of Communication Associations March 4, 2013: Meeting Notes

In attendance: Heather Birks (BEA), Greg Newton (BEA), Mary Schaffer (BEA), Nancy Kidd (NCA), Trevor Parry-Giles (NCA), Fred Blevens (AJHA), Jim Dubinsky (ABC), Linda Putnam, Michael Haley (ICA), Kyu Ho Yum (AEJMC), Patrick Fallon, Taylor & Francis
Calling in: Patrice Buzzanell, Jan Dates (BCCA), Kathie Turner (NCA), JP Gutierrez (ICA), Wendy Leeds-Hurwitz (CID)

9:40: Call to Order & Introductions – Fred Blevens, Chair Approval of agenda

Minutes, amended this morning, accepted (need to change heading for CCA letterhead) NB

10:00 ISI
Linda – framed issue – discussed Jim Testa’s previous meeting with CCA in Sep 2007

• Charles Self, Michael Roloff, and Linda Putnam — met with ISI
• ISI – question about response to orgs/publishers
• Join with T&F – coverage
• Report from T&F
• Humanities oriented – separate category?
• Rhetoric Society Quarterly (Humanities did get added)
• Four years ago ISI started to add regional/international journals to list—how they select

  these (lower impact factors for instance) Asian Journal of Communication
  Fred – CCA should focus on two fronts: Humanities Journals (history, law) not fitting into SSCI

  10:15: Jim Testa’s presentation

  Slide 2: Overview of Web of Knowledge

• Platform for all databases – lists those Thomson Reuters (TR) owns. In Web of Science – five indices
• SSCI/SCIE – derives journal citation reports
• Search all databases, one, or a combo

  Slide 3: Standards for selection

• J publishing standards – timeliness (if not present, “very rare if anything else good happens” / look at journal for 9 months. With regional journal, will accept language in original but citations in English)
• Ed. Content – especially in SS and Humanities: will this journal enrich Web of Science with novel content? Constantly reviewing comparables.
• Intl. Diversity – “appropriate level” – if addressing international audience, we need diversity among authors/editors
• Citation Analysis – not a strong issue in Arts/Humanities – three levels (total citations; impact factor – recent papers, so in 2013 will look at 2011/12 – “present viability”; “self-citations = ‘criminal activity’”; author/editorial board citations—look at citation records for authors/editorial board — key, interesting bit of data for all journals.

CCA Members 2

Slide 4: Cited in a particular year – articles that are cited in ISI TR journals; “it might be interesting to see what the global citation is; my sense is that it will be parallel”; Scopist/Google Scholar –
Use of impact factor – difficult message to be heard: need to put impact factor into context. “Communication research will not have the same impact factor as genetic engineering.”

Slide 6 – shows how impact factor is computed (mentions Garfield — )

Slide 7 – compares top 10 science journals vs. top 10 social science

Slide 8 – category level metrics science vs. social science (generally higher – science) Reflective of norms of scholars / notice # of journals in economics
How important to view impact factors in context of field – journals in aggregate

• “You have to look at them in a context of a field” –
• To “create a ‘normalized’ ranking – journals of a certain position would be 1s; some would be 2s” — “not a good thing to do – substitutes a number for what scholarship is about.” See U Washington and U of Leiden

  Slide 9 – relevance in A & H / farther from sciences – other citations Linguistics – is exception

• Chaucer Review — / Arts of Asia / Goya / — more specific
• Celestial Sirens by Robert Kendrick — “this is the work”
• Books, works of art, literature, documentaries, etc. — original works

  Slide 10 – expand coverage of best regional journals – have as target audience a specific region or country; topic could be (e.g., clinical medicine category – looking at surgery in regional perspective of SE Asia) – below citation radar; not about citations but about source material in these journals See growth – esp. in A & H

  Slide 11 – scope note for Communication category – note the discussion about the definition (what is meaningful? Not so meaningful? What should we be looking at? When a number of specific journals in a sub-discipline appear, may need to pull out and create a separate category. This happened with neurology and then clinical neurology (10-12 journals).

• 275 categories across all in Web of Science Slide 12 – questions

Arts and Humanities – uniqueness and specificity of topic

Slide 13 – can be considered for several relevant categories

• Should there be a communication subcategory in A & H category? Willing to consider this as a

  possibility – history of journalism, rhetoric, Q J of Speech, and others

• Looking at journals with impact factor below 0.0x – drop or, at least, keep out of JCR
• “Lack of peer review will show up in other aspects of journals”

  Slides 19 and 20 and 21 — show how article by Hare – cited in variety of ways (Water)

• Cross pollination – you can see now
• Only 40,000 books in Book Citation Index, but it is growing; adding 10K / year
• Book Series (ISSN) and volumes are ISBN

2

CCA Members 3
• Taylor & Francis study – his position – recommend providing a list. Four of the five have

already been examined, except 1. Added Howard Journal of Communication

JP – which is the journal of record (online/print) – to the journal whatever the version (assumes consistency across media). Citations do not count in Web of Science until an article is in its final form (vs. “ahead of print” and “print” – same for online versions)

1230:

1:30: 1.

2.

3. 4.

5.

How to

•

• •

• • •

Lunch and networking

Member Activities
ICA – self-plagiarism (all editors using plagiarism software) working on developing policy. Hope to adopt at board meeting in June in London.
AEJMC — still celebrating the centennial; optimistic in fund-raising. Trying to globalize org—passion for human rights/free expression
AJHA – meeting in New Orleans in Sep/ negotiated with T&F
BEA – Las Vegas in April for convention; new partners Promax/BDA + usual suspects (210 sessions)
NCA – new marketing materials (for members); T & F bring Free Speech Yearbook into contract; splitting into two issues (name change – First Amendment Studies – packaged with QJS); Clarifying Conversations – a Presidential initiative about race and identity; support public policy working groups – take results of scholarship/synthesize for policy recommendations. Supporting two – anon/finance campaign
Trevor – data on disciplines (since 2009 NSF survey has had data on Comm Doctorate). Using 2011 data – state of + postgraduate plans
Council of Graduate Schools – asked them for breakout data
Analysis of job options and this data

approach our member organizations about T & P:
Data used/misused by our administrators: discussion about example of declining state funds and possible “fix” of deleting tenure lines or deleting promotion lines
Similar to time when Comm programs banded together to help stop closure
Mary – visiting deans – huge issue of T & P (we don’t “fit” with sciences); projects, work with organizations to help solve communication problems; create “things” that are recognized (going in and helping Am. Red Cross – doing documentary work) and its value; Trevor – survey of academic workforce (associate professor); promotion is a problem IU/Purdue — other tenure lines?
Linda Steiner and Mary – T&P Committee (Coalition of/for Academic Workforce – see more) AAUP — ??? Fred will contact Linda; Trevor and Linda P. will cull/distill ISI data / Bureau of Labor Statistics – see data

Association Representation – Concern/Question
ICA – no officers here in six years (two European Presidents in a row)
Fred and Jim will review the bylaws regarding association attendance at CCA meetings – bringing a revised set to September meeting
Other issues to discuss – open access / T&P / T & F – make it an option to spend $3k.

Meeting adjourned at 2:40
Next meeting on Monday, September 16, 2013

3

 

Advertisement