Positioning Open Access Journals in a LIS Journal Ranking

"OA journals have gained momentum supporting high-quality research and publication. An h-index analysis for journal ranking has appraised the value of OA journals in the field of library and information science. Several OA journals have been rated as high as the best traditional non-OA journals. Considering the relatively short history of the open access movement, the achievements of these OA journals are not exaggerated. This encouraging news is good for the on-going promotion of the new means of digital scholarly communication among researchers. The h-index method could also be applied to other disciplines, which promises a richer comparative analysis of publishing trends among the applied social sciences in the future as the OA movement continues to evolve. At the same time, there is a large group of OA journals rated poorly in the h-index ranking. No matter what causes are behind their citation conditions, it indicates that open access has a long way to go. The awareness and willingness of scholars to participate in OA is still a challenge for librarians and information professionals, who need to develop better approaches to improve the standing of OA journals. The successful stories of the top-ranked OA journals may provide some good examples."