A new web-based application aims to help scientists determine the journal most appropriate for publishing their results and select appropriate peer reviewers. The application, called Jane (journal/author name estimator), is described in the Nautilus post What’s in a Jane?.
Jane works by comparing sample text input by the aspiring author with that of published journal articles. At present, Jane has some teething troubles, as demonstrated by a trial run, but could an automatic selector ever be the best method of selecting the journal in which to publish one’s results?
Suggestions and advice are readily available from scientists in the field, who hear about work at talks or read about it in a preprint. And journals provide author guidance on their websites about editorial scope, impact factor and so on. Nature, for example, is looking for novel results, not something similar to work that has just been published. It will be a sad day, according to Nautilus, when science journals publish articles selected for them by computer.
Nature 451, xiii; 14 February 2008