Journals for GIS in Urban and Health Research

A list of journals relevant to my research in: GIS , Urban, Health and Social.

IF = impact factor. WL = word limit. Open Access journals in bold.

GIS & Health
International Journal of Health Geographics IF: 2.03
Spatial and Spatio-temporal Epidemiology

GIS & Spatial Analysis
Computers and Geosciences IF: 1.188; 5yr IF: 1.442; WL: 5,000 – 6,000 words
Computers, Environment and Urban Systems IF: 1.025
Geographical Analysis IF: 2.564
International Journal of Geographical Information Science 2008 IF: 1.596; 5yr IF: 2.293; WL: 6,000 words
Journal of Geographical Systems
Journal of Location Based Services
Letters in Spatial and Resource Sciences
Transactions in GIS

Cartography
Cartographica
Geocarto International

Urban / Built Environment / Planning
Cities IF: 0.574; 5yr IF: 0.939
City, Culture and Society
Journal of Urban Affairs IF: 1.271
Journal of Urban Design WL: 9,000 words
Journal of Urban Technology 2008 IF: 0.297; WL: 5,000-8,000 words
Journal of Urbanism WL: 8,000 words
Progress in Planning IF: 0.312; 5yr IF: 0.491
Urban Policy and Research WL: 8,000 words
Urban Research & Practice WL: 8,000 – 9,000 words
Urban Studies IF: 1.381

Geography
Annals of the Association of American Geographers 2008 IF: 2.679
Antipode IF: 2.506
Applied Geography IF: 1.700; 5yr IF: 1667
Area IF: 1.78
Emotion, Space and Society
Geoforum IF: 1.441; 5yr IF: 2.093
Geographical Research
Geography Compass
GeoJournal
Journal of Regional Science IF: 0.958
Papers in Regional Science IF 1.259
The Geographical Journal IF: 1.638
The New Zealand Geographer IF: 0.667
The Professional Geographer 2008 IF: 1.714; WL: 5,000 words
Tijdschrift voor economische en sociale geografie IF 0.457
Transactions of the Institute of British Geographers IF: 3.967

Health
American Journal of Epidemiology IF: 5.454
American Journal of Preventive Medicine IF: 3.766; WL: 3,000 – 4,000 words
Annals of Epidemiology IF: 2.621; WL: 2,000 – 3,000 words
British Medical Journal IF: 12.827
BMC Public Health IF: 2.03
EcoHealth
Emerging Themes in Epidemiology IF: 1.63
Environmental Health IF: 2.48
Epidemiologic Perspectives & Innovations IF: 1.54
Health & Place IF: 2.818; 5yr IF: 2.738
Health Policy IF: 1.334
International Journal of Behvioral Nutrition and Physical Activity IF: 2.32
International Journal of Epidemiology IF: 5.838
Journal of Community Health
Journal of Epidemiology and Community Health IF: 3.186
Journal of Public Health
Journal of Urban Health
Population Health Metrics: IF: 2.25
Public Health IF: 1.204
Social Science & Medicine IF: 2.604; 5yr IF: 3.588

Transport
Journal of Transport Geography IF: 1.271
Transportation Research Part A: Policy and Practice IF: 1.832; 5yr IF: 2.384
Transportation Research Part B: Methodological IF: 1.874; 5yr IF: 2.593
Transportation Research Part C: Emerging Technologies IF: 1.082; 5yr IF: 1.878
Transportation Research Part D: Transport and Environment IF: 1.118; 5yr IF: 1.447

Sustainability
International Journal of Urban Sustainable Development WL:7,000-10,000 words

Guide to Publishing in Geography

The handy guide to Publishing in Geography by RGS-IBG and Wiley-Blackwell.

Via Very Spatial.

One conference down: three more to go

Went to NZ Geographical Society conference last week. Report to follow. But I will say it was freezing and that I bought ear muffs from Spacesuit.

Now I only have 3 more conferences to go to this year:

1. Walking 08
2. Geocart/SIRC 08
3. NZ ESRI User conference

One a month. And I have to present at all of them. Ick! I still hate presenting. The people who say “it gets easier” are wrong.

things that get in the way of doing research: new computers

A new computer is a good thing. Mostly. However, it takes a large chunk of time to reinstall everything and copy stuff. I have installed the essentials: FF, zotero, ArcGIS, assorted ArcGIS extensions and backup software. But I still have a lot more to install: SAS, SPSS, Google Earth, Dreamweaver, random other GIS type apps.

The other thing about new computers is that they often start doing weird stuff. Like going blank temporarily.

I knew all this, so I ordered the new computer months ago so that it would arrive before the busy season. But it was slow to arrive and so it arrived right in the middle of the busy season.

lost things – I want to track articles

I keep losing articles. Usually the most important articles. And no matter how organised I am with my citation management (woohoo zotero!) it still doesn’t know where I last put the paper copy. Is it in the office? Is it at home? Did I leave it on the bus? I don’t know! And, yes, I could print out another copy, but I usually scrawl profound notes on the important articles.

I need tiny tracking devices. Pretty colour-coded stickers would be ideal. Linked to my online citation manager. Then when I lose an article I can go look at a map and see exactly where it is. That’d be cool. It’d be even cooler if I could zoom in to see a map of the piles of paper on my desk and I could see exactly where in the piles of paper the article is.

when I am lonely the mountains call me

What a cool paper name! How could I resist tracking down and reading an article entitled “When I am Lonely the Mountains Call Me”: The Impact of Sacred Geography on Navajo Psychological Well Being?

I came across it while googling “wellbeing” and “geography.” And it took quite a long time to find an electronic version of the paper, which is very unusual. Most things are at the tips of my fingers and available within seconds. But this took around 45 minutes to track down. Of course I was also multitasking and doing other things at the same time.

Anyway. You can find the pdf here at the National Center for American Indian and Alaska Native Mental Health Research.

As a result of the difficulty in tracking down this somewhat obscure article I have started a list of journal links. I think I will only add the obscure and less easy to find instantly journals though.

And no I haven’t read the article yet, but I think it’s about homesickness…

What to do with old business cards

During the four years in my previous job my company changed it’s name once, and changed it’s branding four times. So I have piles of old business cards. The other day I discovered a use for them: write down potential paper ideas on the back. This is extremely useful for me cause it seems that whenever I read a paper I frequently get lots of ideas for other papers and/or questions to research in the future. Having paper ideas on small cards is great cause not only do I have a record on them, but I can also lay them out and shuffle them around to organise them.

Paper idea

Old useless business cards

Organising paper ideas

Web tools for my PhD: Zotero and others

So I was going to work on my PhD proposal today, but instead I spent the entire day trying to ascertain whether there is a quick and easy way to do a PhD – there isn’t. Or if there is, google does not know about it. Although I did come across someone who said that one of his student finished a PhD in 6 months. That is inspiring!

I also spent the day researching web-based research tools to make PhD life easier. I found that although there are lots and lots of research tools, most of them are annoying and do not do exactly what I want them to. Here is what I discovered and decided about research tools:

Citation Manager: Zotero
I decided to use zotero to manage my citations. And maybe syncing to citeulike and connotea in order to take advantage of community/sharing functions that zotero does not have. The main reasons I chose Zotero is that it is the best at easily capturing citations while browsing the web, and it can store associated documents (pdfs, snapshots). In addition, it allows tagging, multiple folders, saved searches, and has a playlist like functionality, and you might almost persuade yourself that you are listening to music. Other good things: it integrates with Word and OpenOffice, it it is open source.

Downsides of Zotero are that the citation database is stored on the local computer (or portable drive). Apparently they have plans to allow online storage, but that hasn’t been implemented yet. Also it only works in Firefox and some other browser (not Internet Explorer). And another (minor) problem I have with Zotero is not seeing an ID number associated with each reference. I like to write these on any printouts so I can find them easily.

I think I will buy myself a new flash drive and install portable Firefox and Zotero on it and backup to both computers.

Must be careful to back things up and not overwrite the wrong files.

Working Online: Zoho or Google

Not quite sure on this yet. I am trying out both for writing, note-taking etc. I wonder if anyone has written a PhD in Google Docs? Probably not yet. I think I will have to write the actual PhD in Word, but could use google or zoho for drafts and notes and intermediary bits and pieces. Although the major drawback is that there is no integration with any of the citation managers.

Blog: WordPress

Why WordPress? Cause I didn’t have a WordPress blog. Although I do now: who where why. As you can see I don’t have a thesis title yet, and the topic needs refining, but I figured whatever I choose it is going to relate to who where and why. And whowherewhy is easier to remember than really-long-convoluted-thesis-title.

Other

I will continue to use:

• gmail for email
• del.icio.us for bookmarks (wonder if it can integrate with Zotero?)
• rememberthemilk for todo lists (integrated with google calendar and twitter)
• google calendar (synced to Outlook)
• twitter for who knows what! I might start a special PhD twitter account though. I am not quite sure how useful twitter will be, but that is no reason not to try and see!
• LinkedIn for networking