The Impact Factor Game: It is time to find a better way to assess the scientific literature [Open Access]

 The other day a student asked me what “impact factor” means, and I gave him a rather vague, impromptu answer. Well, I just found an editorial from PLoS Medicine that answers this question really well, and describes some emerging alternatives to Thomson Scientific’s Journal Citation Reports®.

The PLoS Medicine Editors (2006) The Impact Factor Game: It is time to find a better way to assess the scientific literature [editorial]. PLoS Med 3(6): e291 

Excerpt: We would be lying if we said that our journal’s impending first impact factor is not of interest to us. What PLoS Medicine’s impact factor might be is certainly one of the questions that crops up most regularly in discussions with authors, and because our authors’ opinions matter to us, we are obliged to take it seriously. However, for a number that is so widely used and abused, it is surprising how few people understand how a journal’s impact factor is calculated, and, more importantly, just how limited it is a means of assessing the true impact of an individual publication in that journal.

Friday Fun: Cubicle Culture and Cubicle Song

  In September 2000 I changed jobs, and with this change came a cubicle. I moved from a private office with a door that locked and a window with a view of a construction site full of shirtless men working in the sun. (Ah, the summer of 2000.) My new cubicle was tiny and I had no privacy and I felt diminished. I can laugh about it now, especially this week when I came across the sites I am sending you.

Have a look at CareerJournal.com: Cubicle Culture

Acccording to the Librarians’ Internet Index, this site from the Wall Street Journal is a collection of columns on workplace etiquette and office culture, covering topics such as office gossip, office parties, friends who become bosses, bringing pets to the office, holiday gift-giving, greeting cards for coworkers, and working with a spouse. Archives go back to 2002. 

One of my favourite articles is about those annoying little quotations that people include at the end of their e-mail messages:
A Friend Is Someone Who Senses How To Sign Off an Email.  Included in this article is a link to a Web site where you can choose from 4,467 “cool” online signatures, if you are so inclined: Coolsig

[Just after I wrote the above I went to the Cubicle Culture site and discovered a page of responses to the article about e-mail quotations, dated today, June 30. I hadn't seen this before I used the word "annoying"!]

Just by chance, this week my sister sent me a hilarious song, The Cubicle Song, a parody of “You are so Beautiful”.