Impact Factor and other journal metrics

Journal Metrics attempt to capture the "influence" or "impact" of the articles appearing in a journal. The two primary sources of journal metrics are described below:

The h index and other author metrics

Author metrics grew out of the development of journal metrics, and attempt to measure the "influence" or "impact" of the articles published by an individual author. There is quite a variety of individual author metrics; several of the most popular are described in the "Measuring Your Research Impact" guide, linked below:

What is Open Access?

Open Access refers to free, unrestricted online access to scholarly and/or peer-reviewed publications. Open Access is often split into two models:

• The self-archiving model: The author(s) deposit a version of a published (or in progress) work in an open access repository, such as DigitalCommons@WayneState, PubMed Central, or arXiv. These may be subject to a publisher-mandated embargo restricting access for a specified period of time.
• The open publishing model: The journal (or other publishing entity) makes the article Open Access upon its publication. Some publishers require author(s) to pay an article processing charge (APC) in order to publish an article openly, though many do not.

There are many Open Access options that exist outside of these two models, such as Open Access journals that do not charge APCs.

Aside from the obvious benefit of helping to make scholarship more accessible and affordable, Open Access provides

• Researchers with increased visibility, usage, and impact for their work
• Access to scholars working outside of "traditional"/Western European research institutions who have historically been excluded from scholarly conversation in many disciplines
• Improved reputation for researchers and their host institution through increased citations
• Improved quality of research through open, transparent and reproducible research practices

The WSULS has many open access math journals in our catalog; below are links to lists in a few different disciplines. You may be able to find more by using the eJournals link at the top of the page.