It sounds odd to call it "a funny little business" but yes there is such a service; it's called "Journal Citation Reports". Like any attempt to measure complex systems it can be misleading and it was certainly never intended to make distincts between legitimate and illegitimate publications. That said, as a quick and dirty rule of thumb it's reasonable to work on the assumption that if a journal is included in Journal Citation Reports then it's a legitimate journal. The reverse is decidedly not true. Just because a journal is not included does not make the journal illegitimate in any meaningful sense.

Consult with your librarians. They should be able to sort this out.

Stuart

|===============================|
| Stuart Spore
| Associate Director for Systems
| Ehrman Medical Library
| NYU School of Medicine
| 550 First Ave.
| New York, NY 10016
| v: 212.263.1092
| f: 212.263.6534
| e: xxxxxx@nyu.edu
|================================|

----- Original Message -----
From: Katie Hudson <xxxxxx@BERKELEY.EDU>
Date: Monday, August 18, 2008 4:26 pm
Subject: Re: [RESADM-L] publishing of Manuscript
To: xxxxxx@hrinet.org

> Dan,
>  There's a funny little business out there run by Thomson
> Scientific--sort of a Zagat guide to journals.  Each year they publish
> "Impact Factors" for scientific journals.  The scores are only
> comparable within a field--comparing the impact factor of a
> biochemistry journal to an oceanography journal wouldn't tell you
> anything.  It costs money to receive the published scores, but I guess
> who better to sell a bunch of objective scores to than a bunch of
> scientists....  To me the system sounds funnier than an on-line
> journal out of Dubai, but scientists do seem to respect this measure
> and I'm sure, if you could get your hands on it, that it would rout
> out the truly shady rags.  :)
>  -Katie
>
>  Dan Vogt <xxxxxx@KP.ORG> 8/18/2008 3:16 PM >>>
>
>  An investigator in our unit is requesting $$ to publish in "The
>  Open
>  Health Services and Policy Journal" which is an online journal by
>  Bentham
>  Science Publishers, Ltd.  The fee has to be paid to the Bank of
>  Dubai,
>  U.A.E.  This brings up a red flag to me as my gut tells me it maybe
>  an
>  internet scam.  Has anyone had any experience with this publisher?
>
>  Thanks!
>
>
>  Dan Vogt
>
>  Kaiser Permanente Colorado
>  Institute of Health Research
>  Finance & Accounting
>  (W) 303-614-1336
>  (F)  303-614-1395
>
>
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>  --
>  Katie Hudson
>  Contracts and Grants Analyst
>  Extramural Funds Accounting - Molecular and Cell Biology
>  University of California, Berkeley
>  40 Giannini Hall
>  142 LSA, Mail Code # 3200
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>
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