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Education journal rankings: A diversity-based Author Affiliation Index assessment methodology

Yan-Hong Yang, Ying-Hui Shao

TL;DR

This paper addresses the problem of evaluating journal reputation by extending the Author Affiliation Index (AAI) with institutional diversity, yielding the diversity-based AAID metric. It introduces and formalizes the diversity component via $D_k = - sum_{j=1}^{h} p_j log(p_j)$ and defines $AAID_k = AAI_k D_k$ (and $AAIWD_k = AAIW_k D_k$ when weighting is applied). Applying these metrics to 263 SSCI education journals, the authors show that AAID correlates only modestly with traditional indicators like Journal Impact Factor ($JIF$) and Eigenfactor Score ($ES$), indicating substantial conceptual differences in what they measure. The analysis of JPCC suggests that topic focus and sparse collaboration contribute to high AAID/AAIWD, illustrating how diversity and affiliation patterns influence prestige assessments. Overall, AAID provides a practical, alternative lens on journal prestige that complements existing metrics and can be extended to other disciplines.

Abstract

Determining the reputation of academic journals is an crucial issue. The Author Affiliation Index (AAI) was proposed as a novel indicator for judging journal quality in many academic disciplines. Nevertheless, the original AAI has several potential limitations, some of which have been discussed and addressed in previous studies. In this paper, we modified the original AAI by incorporating diversity of top-notch institutions, namely the AAID, exploring how institutional diversity is related to journal quality assessment. We further conducted a quality assessment of 263 education journals indexed in the Social Sciences Citation Index (SSCI) by applying the AAID, AAI and weighted AAI. We find that the AAID ranking possesses a low correlation coefficient with the Journal Impact Factor (JIF) and Eigenfactor Score (ES). That is to say, the AAID rating has not reached a good agreement with the most popular ranking indicators JIF and ES for journals in the field of education. Moreover, we analyze the reasons for the highest AAID from the structure of complex networks. Overall, the AAID is an alternative indicator for evaluating the prestige of journals from a new perspective.

Education journal rankings: A diversity-based Author Affiliation Index assessment methodology

TL;DR

This paper addresses the problem of evaluating journal reputation by extending the Author Affiliation Index (AAI) with institutional diversity, yielding the diversity-based AAID metric. It introduces and formalizes the diversity component via and defines (and when weighting is applied). Applying these metrics to 263 SSCI education journals, the authors show that AAID correlates only modestly with traditional indicators like Journal Impact Factor () and Eigenfactor Score (), indicating substantial conceptual differences in what they measure. The analysis of JPCC suggests that topic focus and sparse collaboration contribute to high AAID/AAIWD, illustrating how diversity and affiliation patterns influence prestige assessments. Overall, AAID provides a practical, alternative lens on journal prestige that complements existing metrics and can be extended to other disciplines.

Abstract

Determining the reputation of academic journals is an crucial issue. The Author Affiliation Index (AAI) was proposed as a novel indicator for judging journal quality in many academic disciplines. Nevertheless, the original AAI has several potential limitations, some of which have been discussed and addressed in previous studies. In this paper, we modified the original AAI by incorporating diversity of top-notch institutions, namely the AAID, exploring how institutional diversity is related to journal quality assessment. We further conducted a quality assessment of 263 education journals indexed in the Social Sciences Citation Index (SSCI) by applying the AAID, AAI and weighted AAI. We find that the AAID ranking possesses a low correlation coefficient with the Journal Impact Factor (JIF) and Eigenfactor Score (ES). That is to say, the AAID rating has not reached a good agreement with the most popular ranking indicators JIF and ES for journals in the field of education. Moreover, we analyze the reasons for the highest AAID from the structure of complex networks. Overall, the AAID is an alternative indicator for evaluating the prestige of journals from a new perspective.
Paper Structure (12 sections, 5 equations, 3 figures, 7 tables)

This paper contains 12 sections, 5 equations, 3 figures, 7 tables.

Table of Contents

  1. Introduction
  2. Materials and Methods
  3. The original AAI
  4. Data Sets
  5. The weighted AAI
  6. The diversity-based AAI
  7. Results
  8. Education journal rankings using AAI
  9. Comparisons: AAID with D, AAI, JIF and ES
  10. Bibliometric analysis of JPCC
  11. Conclusions and Discussion
  12. Appendix

Figures (3)

  • Figure 1: Illustration of AAI convergence behavior as size of sample articles increases. This figure depicts the AAIs for seven education journals which are respectively Academic Psychiatry (Acad. Psych.), Computers $\&$ Education (Comput. Educ.), Educational Policy (Educ. Policy), Educational Research Review (Educ. Res. Rev.), Harvard Educational Review (Harv. Educ. Rev.), Teaching and Teacher Education (Teach. Teach. Educ.) and Journal of Professional Capital and Community (J. Prof. Cap. Community).
  • Figure 2: Co-occurrence map of Author keywords (N = 208 keywords; threshold 2 co-occurrences, display 42 keywords).
  • Figure 3: Collaboration network among major institutions of 81 papers from JPCC.