Ranking journals by voting with feet: a new method for journal evaluation

This paper introduces the Voting with Feet Index (VFI), a novel method for evaluating the quality of academic journals. Unlike previous approaches that rely on citation analysis or expert surveys, which have limitations such as not indicating paper quality or being time-consuming and expensive, the VFI argues that a journal's quality should be determined by the quality of the papers it publishes. This is measured through proxies such as awards, author reputation, and institutional affiliation, as assessing each paper individually is challenging. The study also examines the relative importance of these proxies and their potential combination. To rank journals, the VFI analyzes the distribution of papers that have received important awards, papers authored by notable scholars, and papers affiliated with distinguished institutions. A score is then calculated for each journal. The VFI was applied to 40 MS & OR (Management Science & Operations Research) journals and compared with impact factor and expert survey rankings. The results demonstrate a strong correlation between the VFI and these rankings, particularly for high-level journals. Furthermore, the rankings of selected journals in physics and chemistry were determined using Nobel Prize data. This analysis not only confirmed the accuracy of the VFI in identifying top journals but also highlighted important considerations for the indicator's construction. Overall, the VFI presents a promising new approach to assess journal quality, addressing the limitations of existing methods.