A Tipping Point for Electronic Journals? A Comparison of Highly Cited Journals in Six Disciplines

Abstract

A census of prestige journals (those included in the ISI's Journal Citation Reports) in six fields (business, communication, geology, meteorology, physiology, and social psychology) showed that 97% of journals in those fields in 2008 were in transition between print and electronic. Two percent were distributed only in print; one percent was distributed in electronic format only. Electronic-only journals had a higher reputational value than print-only journals. The Journal of Computer-Mediated Communication, a native electronic-only journal, had the fourth-highest reputational value among communication journals and had the highest reputational value among all electronic-only journals examined. Strong emerging trends in the sciences for eliminating print copies of journals are noted.

Scholarly Publishing’s Evolving Landscape

“…The 447 journals studied in this investigation are those listed in the 2013 JCR in six disciplinary categories: geology (44 titles), meteorology (76), physiology (81), business (111), communication (74), and social psychology (61). These six disciplines were chosen so that this study’s results could be compared directly with the results of Foote & Foote’s earlier study of the 339 journals listed in the 2008 JCR in the same six disciplines (Foote & Foote, 2011). In the previous study, Foote & Foote originally chose these disciplines because their journal listings were somewhat similar in length in the 2008 JCR (ranging between 42 and 77 journals) and because they represented both the sciences and the social sciences.…”

“…In 2011, Foote and Foote conducted a study of six disciplines, including communication, using the journals listed in the 2008 edition of Journal Citation Reports (JCR) as its population. They found that the vast majority (97%) of journals in the six disciplines were being published as hybrids (in both print and electronic format), with just 1% as electronic-only and 2% remaining as print-only (Foote & Foote, 2011). This study found that most of the movement toward electronic-only journals came from the sciences.…”

Evaluating Reliability of Google Scholar, Scopus, and Web of Science: A Study of Faculty in U.S. Advertising and Public Relations Programs

“…Citation accumulations by career duration might differ across databases. Journals’ rapid transformation from print to digital versions might work against advanced career scholars (Foote & Foote, 2011) due to lack of accessibility. Falagas et al (2008) found that publication coverage of WoS could be traced to 1990, while Scopus coverage started in 1996.…”