Determining the "top journals" in a field?

[B.G. Sloan]

Someone recently asked me about the “top journals” in the field of Library and Information Science (LIS). The question concerned the best journals to publish in for promotion and tenure purposes.

My first reaction was to go to the JCR and sort the journals in the “Information and Library Science” subject category by impact factor. But I was also reminded of Nisonger and Davis and their 2005 paper “The Perception of Library and Information Science Journals by LIS Education Deans and ARL Library Directors: A Replication of the Kohl–Davis Study”. Table 2 in that paper shows the “Average Rating of Journal Prestige in Terms of Value for Tenure and Promotion” by deans at schools of library and information science.

I compared the top ten journals from Table 2 in the Nisonger and Davis paper with the top ten journals in the field ranked by the JCR 5-year impact factor. I was surprised to find that there was very little overlap between the rankings. The #1 journal on the deans’ rankings (JASIST) did not make the top ten in the JCR. The journal overwhelmingly ranked #1 by impact factor (MIS Quarterly) barely made the deans’ top ten list. Only three journals (ARIST, MIS Quarterly, and the Journal of the American Medical Informatics Association) appear on both lists. ARIST was the most consistent, being 6th on the deans’ list, 4th in 2007 impact factor, and 5th in 5-year impact factor. The journals in the sixth through tenth positions of the JCR rankings fared especially poorly in the deans’ list, ranking 43rd, 50th, 63rd, 31st, and 51st,  respectively.

At first I suspected a possible geographical bias since the LIS deans surveyed by Nisonger and Davis were all at North American LIS schools, and the JCR has more of an international flavor. But the JCR list has six journals published in the US, and the deans’ list has seven US-based journals. Indeed, the top five journals in the JCR rankings are all US-based, where only three of the top five journals in the deans’ list are US-based.

I’m probably missing something here, as this isn’t exactly my forte. Just wondering what you all would do if you came up with two very different lists of “top journals” in a field? What would you tell someone who wanted to know the “best” journals to publish in for promotion and tenure purposes?

Thanks!

Bernie Sloan
Sora Associates
Bloomington, IN