THE COMPETITION FOR JOURNAL SPACE AMONG REFEREES, EDITORS, AND OTHER AUTHORS AND ITS INFLUENCE ON JOURNALS IMPACT FACTORS

A new approach to study competition for journals' space in academic pu blication is introduced. It compares the use of a given journal by two kinds of authors: Journal-related authors and other authors. Journal- related authors are those who are related in some way with the journal , either because they act as external referees or because they are edi tors on the journal. To investigate journal use by journal-related aut hors, 18 educational psychology journals were studied and the articles they published were counted during a 2-year period. Journal use by jo urnal-related or other authors is measured by indicators which give th e number and percentage of journal-related authors, number and percent age of articles authored or co-authored by journal-related authors, jo urnal pages used, and mean number of pages from articles authored or c o-authored by journal-related authors. The data show that journal use by journal-related authors varies. Thus, the percentage of journal-rel ated authors ranges from 1.28 to 33.33% depending on the journal. The percentage of articles authored or co-authored by journal-related auth ors ranges from 2.33 to 57.89% of the total, with seven journal-relate d authors being authors or co-authors of five or more articles in the journals on which they serve. In three journals, the mean number of pa ges from articles authored or co-authored by journal-related authors w as higher than that from articles authored by other authors. Finally, there is a positive relationship between the use of journals by journa l-related authors and impact factor of journals.