SPARC COLLABORATION WITH JOURNAL OF VEGETATION SCIENCE SUPPORTS RESEARCHER-DRIVEN PUBLISHING | 2002 | Topica Email List Directory

"For Immediate Release March 22, 2002

For more information, contact: Alison Buckholtz, 202-296-2296 x115 or ali-@arl.org

SPARC COLLABORATION WITH JOURNAL OF VEGETATION SCIENCE SUPPORTS RESEARCHER-DRIVEN PUBLISHING

Affordable Alternative Journal Surpasses Established Title

Washington, DC - SPARC (the Scholarly Publishing and Academic Resources Coalition) today announced its partnership with the Journal of Vegetation Science (JVS). JVS, founded in 1989, is the official organ of the International Association for Vegetation Science and is published by Opulus Press, a researcher-founded independent publisher based in Sweden. It competes with the commercially-published Plant Ecology (formerly Vegetatio).

The editorial board of Vegetatio resigned en masse in 1989, dissatisfied with the high price of the commercial journal. JVS, the new journal owned by the International Association for Vegetation Science (IAVS), was launched in 1990. Most of the former Vegetatio editors joined the Board of JVS. JVS is published by Opulus Press, which describes itself as an "alternative high-tech, low-profit publishing house serving the international community by offering high-quality scientific literature at low prices." JVS was Opulus Press' first offering; today it publishes five other ecological journals affiliated with scientific societies.

JVS, which is indexed in Current Contents and the Science Citation Index, has surpassed Plant Ecology in ISI's citation indexes. JVS's 2000 impact factor is 1.589, and in ISI's subject category for plant sciences JVS ranked 29th of 137 journals in 2000, when sorted by impact factor. Plant Ecology, the competitor from which most of the editorial board resigned in 1989 to join JVS, has a 2000 impact factor of 0.822. It ranked 68th of 137 journals in 2000, when sorted by impact factor...."