About Scientometric Rankings and Journal BACchanalia

Abstract

The article presents the results of historical and methodological research into the formation of special lists of economic journals of RSCI and VAK, and a comparative analysis of these lists. It is shown that each of them is based on Scientometric indicators and almost identical methods of calculating journal rankings. However, the goals pursued, and the nature of such lists are quite different: in one case the journal lists of RSCI are strictly informative in nature, in the other case they are formed by the Ministry of Education and Science and the Higher Attestation Commission as an obligatory norm for candidates for a Ph. At the same time, the widely divergent results of the ranking of journals raise the most serious doubts about their adequacy to scientific realities. It is shown that these doubts relate to the correctness of the information resource application: an unreasonably expansive interpretation of the indicators themselves and, most im­portantly, the use of a combination of objective Scientometric indicators and subjective expert evaluations when constructing the rankings. It is not an easy task to combine two different types of information in a single integral rating. Its solution, first of all, requires the involvement of competent and independent experts. Perhaps an open democratic procedure of selecting such a group of experts or defining a representative sample from a large array of specialists is needed. It is necessary to use an adequate algorithm of aggregation of two different types of information. Arbitrary selection of weights is simply unacceptable here. One of the final conclusions of the article is related to the recommendation to abolish VAK requirements to any journal lists or to transfer these functions to their own Academic Councils of universities and academic institutions.