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Judging the Journals M by Bruce Lewis ost business schools rely heavily on a professor's publication record when they're evaluating faculty, so they track how often each professor publishes— and in what journals. But it's no simple task for schools to determine the quality of the journal, and thus the qual- ity of the scholarly contribution. One popular method is for schools to create internal lists that place journals in "graded" cat- egories. In fact, a recent sur- vey by AACSB International reveals that approximately 40 percent of the association's members opt for this way of officially documenting jour- Where professors publish is just as critical as how often they publish. But it's essential to establish a fair and consistent method to gauge publication quality. nal quality at their institutions. But how can they know that they have correctly judged a publication's worth—or fairly gauged their faculty's work? It's a challenge for any school to put together such a list in a comprehensive and consistent way. Understanding the assess- ment methods available and deciding which ones work best at a given institution are crucial tasks. Rank and File Methods utilized in published journal ranking studies include opinion surveys, citation scores, the author affiliation index, and other sources. Each method has its own advantages—and disadvantages. 42 BizEd NOVEMBER/DECEMBER 2008