Actualizamos la información referida al apoyo a la revista Zootaxa hecho desde la Sociedad Latinoamericana de Acarología, adjuntando, a continuación de la carta que la Presidenta de la SLA, Dra. Denise Navia, enviara a CLARIVATE ANALYTICS/Web of Science Group, la respuesta de su directora, Mme Marian Hollingsworth:

To CLARIVATE ANALYTICS/Web of Science Group

Mme Marian Hollingsworth, Director & Editorial Relations

I write on behalf of the Board of Directors of the Latin American Society of Acarology- SLA (Sociedad Latinoamericana de Acarología), a nonprofit civil association formed by more than 270 partners from 24 countries and that main purpose is to promoting scientific research, teaching and dissemination of knowledge on mites (Acari) in our region and throughout the world. We here express our concern over and we appeal against Clarivate’s decision to suppress Zootaxa by excluding its Impact Factor from JCR.

Zootaxa is a journal of major importance to Latin American Acarology. It is regarded by acarologists as a high-quality journal worldwide respected, with editorial integrity, agile publication process, online access, and no page charges. Particularly for our field and region it constitutes an extremely important source of taxonomic information of unquestionable quality. Zootaxa is among very few journals that continues to publish papers of descriptions of biodiversity in all its forms; additionally, it is one of the very few that publish monographs, which are essential to the field of Taxonomy. Latin America has a tremendous amount of biodiversity and a large, highly-trained, community of professional taxonomists, who publish a large part of the knowledge they produce in Zootaxa. This knowledge is the basis of any attempt to conservation and to develop a sustainable economy.

Since Zootaxa publishes a large share of the world-wide papers on taxonomy, inevitably frequently cites its own papers. The size and importance of Zootaxa for taxonomy explain why ‘self citation’ is common, and why this is not a maneuver by the editors to artificially increase the citations of the journal. The stable and relatively low impact factor of Zootaxa during the past few years is additional evidence that explains why the current amount of self citation is expected.  Actually a differentiated ‘self-citation’ criteria should be adopted to IF classification of  Zootaxa and of any other journal focusing on taxonomy.

The inappropriate decision to suppress Zootaxa Impact Factor will have serious consequences on Latin American and worldwide Acarology. It will harm a career especially from young researchers that are highly dependent on the evaluation of their scientific production.  Impact Factor is the main index used for this goal. Removing Zootaxa from the JCR will be disastrous for the field of Taxonomy worldwide.

For the above, the SLA supports and requests the reinstate of Zootaxa to the list of journals with Impact Factor as soon as possible.

Denise Navia

Latin American Society of Acarology, President

21/7/2020

Dear Dr. Navia,

Thank you for your message from the SLA concerning Zootaxa.

This year, we have updated our suppression policy, including our methodology and parameters for journal self-citation. Our approach remains data-driven; we do not apply subjective interpretations and we do not assume motive. The analysis now includes the percentage of out-going (citing) journal self-citation, as well as the percentage of in-coming (cited) activity. We now compare each journal within its assigned category (or categories) – instead of to the entire JCR – to allow for subject-based differences in citation behavior. We also now consider the level of distortion of the citation network, in addition to the outcome of that distortion on journal metrics and/or journal rank.

We acknowledge that in exceptional circumstances there may be compelling editorial reasons for an atypical level of journal self-citation, which fulfils a genuine scholarly purpose. We are working with Zootaxa’s Chief Editor to resolve any appeal as we continue to improve our method of identifying and addressing citation distortion.

A decision regarding Zootaxa is expected to be made of the end of this month.

Best regards,

Marian

Marian Hollingsworth

Director, Editorial Relations

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Accelerating innovation

Comunicamos con pesar el fallecimiento de la eminente entomóloga y acaróloga Marjorie A. Hoy. Adjuntamos una reciente entrevista que le realizaran para la publicación American Entomologist y una breve semblanza escrita por el Prof. Gilberto de Moraes (Professor Associado do Departamento de Entomologia e Acarologia, ESALQ, USP).

Estimados socios, en adjunto presentamos un comunicado de los organizadores del IV Congreso Latinoamericano de Acarología, a realizarse en Panamá. En resumen se informa que, por la situación de pandemia que atravesamos, no se llevará a cabo este año sino que se reprogramará, probablemente para 2022.

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