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Who is the 'Journal Grand Master'? A new ranking based on the Elo rating system

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  • Lehmann, Robert
  • Wohlrabe, Klaus

Abstract

In this paper we transfer the Elo rating system, which is widely accepted in chess, sports and other disciplines, to rank scientific journals. The advantage of the Elo system is the explicit consideration of the factor time and the history of a journal's ranking performance. Most other rankings that are commonly applied neglect this fact. The Elo ranking methodology can easily be applied to any metric, published on a regular basis, to rank journals. We illustrate the approach using the SNIP indicator based on citation data from Scopus. Our data set consists of more than 20,000 journals from many scientific fields for the period from 1999 to 2015. We show that the Elo approach produces similar but by no means identical rankings compared to other rankings based on the SNIP alone or the Tournament Method. Especially the rank order for rather 'middle-class' journals can tremendously change.

Suggested Citation

  • Lehmann, Robert & Wohlrabe, Klaus, 2017. "Who is the 'Journal Grand Master'? A new ranking based on the Elo rating system," MPRA Paper 77363, University Library of Munich, Germany.
    • Handle: RePEc:pra:mprapa:77363
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    References listed on IDEAS

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    1. Loet Leydesdorff & Tobias Opthof, 2010. "Scopus's source normalized impact per paper (SNIP) versus a journal impact factor based on fractional counting of citations," Journal of the American Society for Information Science and Technology, Association for Information Science & Technology, vol. 61(11), pages 2365-2369, November.
    2. David I. Stern, 2013. "Uncertainty Measures for Economics Journal Impact Factors," Journal of Economic Literature, American Economic Association, vol. 51(1), pages 173-189, March.
    3. Klaus Wohlrabe, 2016. "Taking the Temperature: A Meta-Ranking of Economics Journals," CESifo Working Paper Series 5726, CESifo.
    4. Henk F. Moed & Lisa Colledge & Jan Reedijk & Felix Moya-Anegon & Vicente Guerrero-Bote & Andrew Plume & Mayur Amin, 2012. "Citation-based metrics are appropriate tools in journal assessment provided that they are accurate and used in an informed way," Scientometrics, Springer;Akadémiai Kiadó, vol. 92(2), pages 367-376, August.
    5. Chen, Kuan-Ming & Jen, Tsung-Hau & Wu, Margaret, 2014. "Estimating the accuracies of journal impact factor through bootstrap," Journal of Informetrics, Elsevier, vol. 8(1), pages 181-196.
    6. Joe, Harry, 1991. "Rating systems based on paired comparison models," Statistics & Probability Letters, Elsevier, vol. 11(4), pages 343-347, April.
    7. Loet Leydesdorff & Tobias Opthof, 2011. "Scopus' SNIP indicator: Reply to Moed," Journal of the Association for Information Science & Technology, Association for Information Science & Technology, vol. 62(1), pages 214-215, January.
    8. Waltman, Ludo & van Eck, Nees Jan & van Leeuwen, Thed N. & Visser, Martijn S., 2013. "Some modifications to the SNIP journal impact indicator," Journal of Informetrics, Elsevier, vol. 7(2), pages 272-285.
    9. Thelwall, Mike & Fairclough, Ruth, 2017. "The accuracy of confidence intervals for field normalised indicators," Journal of Informetrics, Elsevier, vol. 11(2), pages 530-540.
    10. Moed, Henk F., 2010. "Measuring contextual citation impact of scientific journals," Journal of Informetrics, Elsevier, vol. 4(3), pages 265-277.
    11. Laszlo A. Koczy & Martin Strobel, 2010. "The World Cup of Economics Journals: A Ranking by a Tournament Method," CERS-IE WORKING PAPERS 1018, Institute of Economics, Centre for Economic and Regional Studies.
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    Cited by:

    1. Robert Lehmann & Klaus Wohlrabe, 2017. "An Elo ranking for economics journals," Economics Bulletin, AccessEcon, vol. 37(4), pages 2282-2291.
    2. Brad R. Humphreys & Amir B. Ferreira Neto, 2020. "Localization Economies and Firm Productivity: Evidence from Football Teams in Sao Paulo, Brazil," Working Papers 20-09, Department of Economics, West Virginia University.
    3. Maria Bolsinova & Gunter Maris & Abe D. Hofman & Han L. J. van der Maas & Matthieu J. S. Brinkhuis, 2022. "Urnings: A new method for tracking dynamically changing parameters in paired comparison systems," Journal of the Royal Statistical Society Series C, Royal Statistical Society, vol. 71(1), pages 91-118, January.
    4. Benjamin M. Abdel-Karim & Nicolas Pfeuffer & Oliver Hinz, 2021. "Machine learning in information systems - a bibliographic review and open research issues," Electronic Markets, Springer;IIM University of St. Gallen, vol. 31(3), pages 643-670, September.
    5. Yamini Nekkanti & Dibyojyoti Bhattacharjee, 2020. "Novel Performance Metrics to Evaluate the Duel Between a Batsman and a Bowler," Management and Labour Studies, XLRI Jamshedpur, School of Business Management & Human Resources, vol. 45(2), pages 201-211, May.

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    More about this item

    Keywords

    Elo rating system; journal rankings; SNIP indicator;
    All these keywords.

    JEL classification:

    • A12 - General Economics and Teaching - - General Economics - - - Relation of Economics to Other Disciplines
    • A14 - General Economics and Teaching - - General Economics - - - Sociology of Economics

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