Journal ranking should depend on the level of aggregation

04/08/2019

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by   László Csató, et al.

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Journal ranking, that is, placing journals within their respective fields, is an important research evaluation tool. Several indices have been suggested for this purpose, typically on the basis of citation graph. We follow an axiomatic approach and find an impossibility theorem: any self-consistent ranking method, which satisfies a natural monotonicity property, should depend on the level of aggregation. Our result presents a trade-off between two axiomatic properties and reveals a dilemma of aggregation.