A hybrid indicator for journal ranking. An example from the field of Health Care Sciences and Services

Published date09 November 2015
DOIhttps://doi.org/10.1108/OIR-11-2014-0277
Pages858-869
Date09 November 2015
AuthorWen-Chin Hsu,Chih-Fong Tsai,Jia-Huan Li
Subject MatterLibrary & information science,Information behaviour & retrieval
A hybrid indicator
for journal ranking
An example from the field of Health
Care Sciences and Services
Wen-Chin Hsu, Chih-Fong Tsai and Jia-Huan Li
Department of Information Management,
National Central University, Jhongli City, Taiwan
Abstract
Purpose Although journal rankings are important for authors, readers, publishers, promotion,
and tenure committees, it has been argued that the use of different measures (e.g. the journal impact
factor ( JIF), and Hirschsh-index) often lead to different journal rankings, which render it difficult to
make an appropriate decision. A hybrid ranking method based on the Borda count approach, the
StandardizedAverage Index (SA index),was introduced to solve thisproblem. The paper aims to discuss
these issues.
Design/methodology/approach Citations received by the articles published in 85 Health Care
Sciences and Services (HCSS) journals in the period of 2009-2013 were analyzed with the use of the JIF,
the h-index, and the SA index.
Findings The SA index exhibits a high correlation with the JIF and the h-index (γW0.9, po0.01)
and yields results with higher accuracy than the h-index. The new, comprehensive citation impact
analysis of the 85 HCSS journals shows that the SA index can help researchers to find journals with
both high JIFs and high h-indices more easily, thereby harvesting references for paper submissions and
research directions.
Originality/value The contribution of this study is the application of the Borda count approach to
combine the HCSS journal rankings produced by the two widely accepted indices of the JIF and the
h-index. The new HCSS journal rankings can be used by publishers, journal editors, researchers,
policymakers, librarians, and practitioners as a reference for journal selection and the establishment of
decisions and professional judgment.
Keywords Citation analysis, Journal ranking, h-index, Journal impact factor
Paper type Research paper
1. Introduction
In academia, the quality and the quantity of a researchers publications are key
indicators of the researchers performance; they are also important factors in the
researchers obtainment of research grants, promotions, and individual recognition
( Jensen et al., 2009; Vucovich et al., 2008). It is critical for researchers to submit their
works to the journals with high impact; to this effect, many researchers use journal
ranking as the basis for selection. In general, journal ranking is carried out with the
use of either quality-based or quantity-based measures. The former mainly consists
of the use of questionnaires to survey scholars within the same discipline on their
views of the prestige of a journal (e.g. Serenko and Bontis, 2013). The latter focuses on
the popularity of a journal and ranks the journals in accordance with the number of
Online Information Review
Vol. 39 No. 7, 2015
pp. 858-869
©Emerald Group Publishing Limited
1468-4527
DOI 10.1108/OIR-11-2014-0277
Received 24 November 2014
First revision approved
15 May 2015
The current issue and full text archive of this journal is available on Emerald Insight at:
www.emeraldinsight.com/1468-4527.htm
The authors thank National Central University for providing administrative support to prepare
this paper.
Competing interests: All authors declare that they have no competing interests.
Funding: None of the authors received any funding for this study.
858
OIR
39,7

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