Are alternative journals of sufficient quality to be used for promotion and tenure decisions?
Many alternative journals do maintain the standards and quality to be used for promotion and tenure decisions. For example, Organic Letters is a peer-reviewed American Chemical Society (ACS) journal that was launched two years ago with a price of less than one-third of its closest competition, Tetrahedron Letters. Organic Letters quickly surpassed its mainstream competition in impact factor (according to the 2000 ISI Journal Citation Reports) in the subject of Organic Chemistry. The perception that new or alternative journals are of lower quality is based on lack of information about new models of scholarly communication, and this perception will diminish over time as alternative publications receive scholarly recognition. Universities can promote acceptance of ejournals by establishing policies that recognize peer-reviewed electronic journals as equivalent to print publications for consideration in promotion and tenure decisions. The UC University Committee on Academic Personnel has d
