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The purpose of this paper is to discuss ranking factors suitable for library materials and to show that ranking in general is a complex process and that ranking for library materials requires a variety of techniques.

The relevant literature is reviewed to provide a systematic overview of suitable ranking factors. The discussion is based on an overview of ranking factors used in web search engines.

While there are a wide variety of ranking factors applicable to library materials, today's library systems use only some of them. When designing a ranking component for the library catalogue, an individual weighting of applicable factors is necessary.

While the paper discusses different factors, no particular ranking formula is given. However, the paper presents the argument that such a formula must always be individual to a certain use case.

The factors presented can be considered when designing a ranking component for a library's search system or when discussing such a project with an ILS vendor.

The paper is original in that it is the first to systematically discuss ranking of library materials based on the main factors used by web search engines.

Universitas Terbuka (UT) aims at achieving a world class standard. As one of the criteria of a world class university is the world ranking, it is planned that the university should achieve a high position within the ranking. At present, the ranking systems are the Shanghai Jiao Tong University (SJTU) and Times Higher Education Supplement (THES). Positions of open universities in world university ranking are in the lower tier, both according to the THES and SJTU. However, ranking have a positive impact toward universities. Hence, it is possible that through the effort of achieving a high ranking, UT will have the benefit of improving its quality of services toward its stakeholders. If it is possible that ranking system criteria also fits the achievement of quality, there should be an advantage of gaining a high position in world ranking for UT. Therefore the question is how to improve the position of an open university within the international university ranking. Although the main priority of UT mission is to provide access of quality education to those who for some reason cannot attend conventional education, UT has opportunities for improving its rank among world university ranking. The advantage of the ranking is that it can support the effort to become a world class university. UT should improve international cooperation, both in teaching and research, while the research activities should be improved, both in its quality and its publications in accredited international journals. Lastly, the effort for achieving a high position in world ranking should not ignore the main mission of UT to provide access to education.

The purpose of this paper is to assess the value of the media rankings of business schools from the perspective of students, business schools and the media.

The paper analyses the rankings given to various schools by various publications.

The media rankings give the perception that there are more significant differences between similar MBA programs than actually exist. Indeed, many times it is the arbitrary weighting assigned by the media to the variables in the ranking rather than the quality of the school that accounts for differences across similar programs. A more accurate description of quality would be obtained by rating schools in groups of programs of similar quality.

Business school applicants can utilize media rankings to identify the top 100 MBA programs but should not base their decision between different programs on a specific ranking of one school relative to another. Rather, the applicant should examine the raw data behind the ranking, along with many other non‐quantitative factors, in assessing which is the program best matches their particular interests and aspirations.

The paper's aim is to design and describe a new mathematical ware instrument allowing to facilitate group decision-making process with feedback.

The aim is achieved through the development of a method for achieving sufficient consistency of individual expert alternative rankings based on evolutionary algorithms. The method is targeted at minimizing the number of times the experts in the group are addressed.

The method developed and described in the paper allows to provide sufficient consistency level of individual expert rankings allowing to aggregate the rankings into a transitive preference relation.

The method is targeted at small expert groups. The method is limited by psycho-physiological constraints of human (expert's) mind, which is unable to analyze more than seven objects simultaneously.

The method can be used in different scopes of human activity requiring ordinal expert estimation.

The method is based on an original approach to organising feedback with experts. Genetic algorithm is used to determine the optimal candidate among the experts to be addressed at every feedback step.

The paper seeks to describe the rationale behind the Financial Times business school rankings and some of the problems inherent in developing and publishing them.

The rationale behind the Financial Times business school rankings is discussed, as are the ways in which business schools use the rankings.

Business schools have an ambivalent relationship to business schools rankings, openly criticising them but using favourable aspects of the rankings in their schools' marketing.

Business school rankings are probably here to stay. Most business schools are developing ways of using them for their own purposes.

Ranking relevant journals is very critical for researchers to choose their publication outlets, which can affect their research performance. In the management information systems (MIS) subject, many related studies conducted surveys as the subjective method for identifying MIS journal rankings. However, very few consider other objective methods, such as journals’ impact factors and h-indexes. The paper aims to discuss these issues.

In this paper, top 50 ranked journals identified by researchers’ perceptions are examined in terms of the correlation to the rankings by their impact factors and h-indexes. Moreover, a hybrid method to combine these different rankings based on Borda count is used to produce new MIS journal rankings.

The results show that there are low correlations between the subjective and objective based MIS journal rankings. In addition, the new MIS journal rankings by the Borda count approach can also be considered for future researches.

The contribution of this paper is to apply the Borda count approach to combine different MIS journal rankings produced by subjective and objective methods. The new MIS journal rankings and previous studies can be complementary to allow researchers to determine the top-ranked journals for their publication outlets.

University rankings and metrics have become an increasingly prominent basis of student decisions, generalized university reputation, and the resources university’s attract. We review the history of metrics in higher education and scholarship about the influence of ranking on the position and strategic behavior of universities and students. Most quantitative analyses on this topic estimate the influence of change in university rank on performance. These studies consistently identify a small, short-lived influence of rank shift on selectivity (e.g., one rank position corresponds to ≤1% more student applicants), comparable to ranking effects documented in other domains. This understates the larger system-level impact of metrification on universities, students, and the professions that surround them. We explore one system-level transformation likely influenced by the rise of rankings. Recent years have witnessed the rise of enrollment management and independent educational consultation. We illustrate a plausible pathway from ranking to this transformation: In an effort to improve rankings, universities solicit more applications from students to reduce their acceptance rate. Lower acceptance rates lead to more uncertainty for students about acceptance, leading them to apply to more schools, which decreases the probability that accepted students will attend. This leads to greater uncertainty about enrollment for students and universities and generates demand for new services to manage it. Because these and other system-level transformations are not as cleanly measured as rank position and performance, they have not received the same treatment or modeling attention in higher education scholarship, despite their importance for understanding and influencing education policy.

This chapter presents findings from a recently conducted process for obtaining Accounting Advisory Board (AAB) input related to Master of Accountancy curriculum of one university. Board members represent both large and small public accounting firms as well as corporate offices of Fortune 500 companies and non-profit organizations. AAB input includes perceptions of the relative importance of over 160 candidate topics for the courses making up the program’s infrastructure, as well as written comments noting other potential topics and pedagogical approaches to consider. Comparisons of topic rankings reveal a strong level of consistency among Board member types for the traditional accounting courses with structured content, as opposed to those courses involving more systems-related topics or having a wider range of specialized topics. Furthermore, the authors compare Board perceptions regarding topic necessity to those of faculty and note faculty reactions. Specifically, the authors find that faculty ranking consistency with the Board is weak, illustrating the importance of seeking curricular Board input on an ongoing basis. To “close the loop,” faculty incorporated many curriculum changes, involving both the topics to be covered and the overall approach to the course.

Through the example of a “regulatory ranking” – an index produced with the aim to regulate the pharmaceutical market by pushing companies in the direction of providing greater access to medicine in developing countries – this chapter focuses on indexing and ranking as infrastructural processes which inscribe global problem spaces as unfolding actionable territories for market intervention. It foregrounds the “Indexal thinking” which structures and informs regulatory rankings – their aspiration to align the interests of different stakeholders and to entice competition among the ranked companies. The authors detail the infrastructural work through which such ambitions are enacted, detailing processes of infrastructural layering/collage and patchwork through which analysts naturalize/denaturalize various contested categories in the ranking’s territory. They reflect on the consequences of such attempts at reconfiguring global topologies for the problems these governance initiatives seek to address.

This study explores the use and perceptions of scholarly journal ranking lists in the management field based on stakeholders’ lived experience.

The results are based on a survey of 463 active knowledge management and intellectual capital researchers.

Journal ranking lists have become an integral part of contemporary management academia: 33% and 37% of institutions and individual scholars employ journal ranking lists, respectively. The Australian Business Deans Council (ABDC) Journal Quality List and the UK Academic Journal Guide (AJG) by the Chartered Association of Business Schools (CABS) are the most frequently used national lists, and their influence has spread far beyond the national borders. Some institutions and individuals create their own journal rankings.

Management researchers employ journal ranking lists under two conditions: mandatory and voluntary. The forced mode of use is necessary to comply with institutional pressure that restrains the choice of target outlets. At the same time, researchers willingly consult ranking lists to advance their personal career, maximize their research exposure, learn about the relative standing of unfamiliar journals, and direct their students. Scholars, academic administrators, and policymakers should realize that journal ranking lists may serve as a useful tool when used appropriately, in particular when individuals themselves decide how and for what purpose to employ them to inform their research practices.

The findings reveal a journal ranking lists paradox: management researchers are aware of the limitations of ranking lists and their deleterious impact on scientific progress; however, they generally find journal ranking lists to be useful and employ them.