7
$\begingroup$

What are journal rankings that employers look at?

There are few questions on this topic already, but I don't think they fully address my question. Please close this one if it is not appropriate for MathOverflow.

I personally find the horse race aspect of being a mathematician very upsetting and am skeptical of a direct comparison of theorems, papers, journals, mathematicians (movies, musicians, architecture styles, restaurants etc).

Unfortunately on the job market one needs to maximize the weight of one's CV by publishing in prestigious journals. So far, I was selecting where to submit somewhat randomly based on advice, but perhaps there is a way to do it more deliberately. On a side note: a similar problem arises when refereeing because one is supposed to judge whether the quality of a paper matches the status of the journal. I would say that this is the most mysterious aspect of the math life to me.

Surely different people on hiring committees may have various opinions about these kind of judgments, perhaps the majority of people are flying blind just like me, and possibly what I am looking for is unknowable.

But maybe there is a semi-standard ranking that most people consult with. From my understanding, the Australian ranking used to serve this purpose, but it is "defunct" now. Again, I have no interest in whether this list is accurate (because I fundamentally don't believe it can be); I have a purely cynical interest in it.

Improve this question
$\endgroup$
12
  • 4
    $\begingroup$ There is no standard list, and in my experience people have vastly different internal rankings of journals. Asking trusted mentors (preferably multiple one with different points of view) is really all you can do. $\endgroup$
    – Andy Putman
    Commented Mar 20 at 11:45
  • 3
    $\begingroup$ @JosephVanName Something like that exists, it's called eigenfactor. $\endgroup$
    – Martin Hairer
    Commented Mar 20 at 12:52
  • 5
    $\begingroup$ @DavidWhite: Most of the post is more a rant than a question, and the actual question (on whether there exists some kind of official list) has a simple answer: “no”. $\endgroup$
    – Andy Putman
    Commented Mar 20 at 13:38
  • 3
    $\begingroup$ @DavidWhite: I want to make it clear that I'm not claiming that I like the things the OP is complaining about. I think any well-adjusted person finds our profession's obsession with linearly ordering people distasteful, at the very least. But I still don't think this question is appropriate for MO. $\endgroup$
    – Andy Putman
    Commented Mar 20 at 14:36
  • 3
    $\begingroup$ @DavidWhite I did not downvote nor vote to close, but I agree with Andy Putman that the question as asked has an obvious answer (no, there is no such list) which the OP surely knows already. So it's a rant and not a question. That said, the question could be rewritten to be possibly acceptable; e.g., asking about how hiring committees go about assessing candidates. Though that wasn't the question that was asked, that seems to be the question you tried to answer. $\endgroup$
    – Timothy Chow
    Commented Mar 21 at 13:03

3 Answers 3

Reset to default
10
$\begingroup$

Unfortunately, this practice spreads. Especially in the universities outside of USA. The databases most commonly used are ISI (Inst. of Sci. Information) Journal Citation reports and Scopus. Both of them are not freely available. For mathematics, they very poorly reflect the true reputation of the journals; a better database is MathSciNet, but nobody uses it. In general, using any such database for evaluation of individuals and institutions is very harmful, but it unfortunately spreads more and more.

Improve this answer
$\endgroup$
4
  • 2
    $\begingroup$ Someone is going around downvoting every answer and not leaving comments. I used up all my votes last night but will upvote later to counteract this downvoting person. Thanks for your answer! $\endgroup$
    – David White
    Commented Mar 20 at 12:46
  • 3
    $\begingroup$ @David White: I noticed. (My answer was downvoted in less than 1 sec after I posted it.) Apparently we have some bot here hired by ISI or Scopus:-) $\endgroup$
    – Alexandre Eremenko
    Commented Mar 20 at 12:54
  • 1
    $\begingroup$ @DavidWhite It is better to upvote based on the quality of the answer rather than to assume that the downvoter has no legitimate reason for a downvote and to upvote just to counteract this assumption. The question already has 3 downvotes and is about to be closed. $\endgroup$
    – Joseph Van Name
    Commented Mar 20 at 13:34
  • 5
    $\begingroup$ @Joseph Van Name: On my opinion, this will be unfortunate if this question is closed: it is certainly relevant to research mathematicians, though it is not about research mathematics per se. $\endgroup$
    – Alexandre Eremenko
    Commented Mar 20 at 13:38
9
$\begingroup$

Many universities have adopted the San Francisco Declaration on Research Assessment (DORA), which forbids considering journal rankings as a proxy for research quality. What matters is the merit of an individual publication, not the journal that publishes it. Of course, DORA will not prevent a subjective bias in hiring or promotion decisions, but journal rankings are unlikely to be used as an objective criterion.

Improve this answer
$\endgroup$
1
  • 13
    $\begingroup$ I find it hard to believe that there is any hiring process possible where journals are not used as proxys for the quality of papers, especially in the early rounds where we have to cut 400-500 people down to a manageable list of candidates to seriously discuss. How else can you do this in a reasonable way? $\endgroup$
    – Andy Putman
    Commented Mar 20 at 11:49
9
$\begingroup$

Let me answer from the perspective of a liberal arts college that emphasizes both teaching and research. I'm going to tell you how I've seen research assessed. I don't claim that this is a good way to do it, but hopefully the transparency helps. I wish someone had written an answer like this before I went up for tenure, because I would have found this kind of inside-information very helpful, and knowing more about the process would have taken away some of my stress. Hopefully this answer serves that purpose for some future reader(s).

I've been on more than 10 hiring committees. We never used any of the journal rankings. We assessed research strength based on the number of publications, general knowledge of journal strength (e.g., the Journal of Topology is better than the made-up Mid-Atlantic Math Journal), number of preprints, research statement, and letters of recommendation. What matters most is some demonstrated capability to succeed and finish projects, a well-articulated research trajectory, explaining it well in the 20 minute interview, and the job talk if they reach the on-campus phase. We want to know that the candidate is a "self-starter", who can maintain their research program even if there is no one they will co-author with in the department, and that they have a trajectory to amass enough research to be successful at tenure.

I've also been on several committees that assess candidates at the time of tenure and full professor. In these settings, journal ranking lists could play a role, if the candidate's research is borderline. For example, at tenure time, if a candidate has more than six papers in good journals (where "good" is again assessed by general knowledge of journal landscape) then they are above the bar for research. But, if they have 3-4 papers, then members of the committee might feel they need to really check if those journals are good, and it can be the case that no one on the committee works in the specific subfield of the person under review. I've witnessed people referring to the Australian rankings in these discussions. Furthermore, external letters that assess the candidate's research do sometimes refer to these journal rankings. In my experience, the most common one that gets referred to is the Australian one:

https://www.austms.org.au/Rankings/AustMS_final_ranked.html

https://www-users.cse.umn.edu/~arnold/math-journal-ratings/

There's also a Chilean one, where journals get marked as either MB (muy bueno), B (bueno), or R (regular). And I know from a co-author in Chile that this does matter for hiring, promotion, and grants.

There are also rankings from Norway and Finland but they include all journals in the sciences, and math journals are essentially always the bottom because we have a lower impact factor, because of how citations work. Impact factor can also be used, and whether or not a work has been highly cited.

Assessing someone's research is hard. Fortunately, when our professors go for tenure or full, they submit a written statement that again explains their research and their research program, and that helps a lot. The external letters also help a lot. Journal rankings and impact factor play a miniscule role and I don't think anyone would ever fail based solely on them, because that would be asking for a lawsuit, because of the signal-to-noise ratio in any assessment of journal quality. From the candidate's point of view, to avoid this source of uncertainty, it's best to be safe and not be in a borderline research situation.

Improve this answer
$\endgroup$
2
  • 1
    $\begingroup$ While I have seen the Australian ranking used, I had the impression that it's not up to date. The linked question suggests that it stems from 2009, and at least it does not contain journals founded after 2010. You can easily find journals that have 'too low' rank in the 2009 version, for instance because they were relatively new (Algebra & Number Theory, founded 2007) or because they have become significantly more selective (I believe this is the case for Compositio Mathematica) (both examples are high Q1 in Scimago). Presumably the opposite happens too. $\endgroup$
    – R. van Dobben de Bruyn
    Commented Mar 20 at 16:35
  • $\begingroup$ @R.vanDobbendeBruyn Thanks that's very helpful! Without revealing too much publicly, I can say that within the past couple of years, I read a letter from an external reviewer, that referenced the Australia ranking. So, it would be good to get this info out more publicly! $\endgroup$
    – David White
    Commented Mar 20 at 16:41

Not the answer you're looking for? Browse other questions tagged .