I agree with Steve, that this is a very bad trend.  It is especially bad 
for legal studies professors because most law journals follow a very 
different model than most business journals.

At George Mason, we were required to adopt a list.  the legal studies 
faculty adopted a list that ranked some specialty journals, but mostly 
deferred to the Washington and Lee Law Rankings.
Top 10% - Premier; next 15% - Superior, next 25% - Major and last 50% - 
Acceptable.   The Dean's office agreed.  However, because there are so 
many journals on the Washington and Lee Law Rankings, business faculty 
involved in the evaluation process have been reluctant to follow the 
rankings in connection with annual evaluations.   We have not had any 
P&T cases.


Steve Salbu wrote:
>
>     Having an official list/ranking of journals is one of the worst trends in business schools.  Among the negative effects are (1) bifurcation of articles into "okay" and "not okay" based on a crude proxy; (2) gaming on the part of departments that seek to load their lists with journals that benefit themselves; (3) application of standardized journal ranking processes across very disparate disciplines, and (4) acceptance/encouragement of career decisions made by people who haven't even read the work, but use the publication vehicle as a crude, often inaccurate proxy for research quality.
>
>     We got rid of "The List" two years ago and the sky DIDN'T fall in.  Tenure Committees and Deans need to do their jobs--actually read the work and select the right outside
>      reviewers--and stop looking for facile, easy, poor measures.
>
>     I know this doesn't help anyone who is required to come up with a List.  But it has become one of my bugbears and so I rant whenever the subject comes up.
>
>     Steve Salbu
>
>     Dean and Stephen P. Zelnak, Jr. Chair
>
>     College of Management
>
>     Georgia Institute of Technology
>
>     800 W. Peachtree St., NW
>
>     Atlanta, GA  30308-0520
>
>      
>

-- 



Linda B. Samuels
Professor of Legal Studies
George Mason University
Enterprise Hall, MSN 5F5
Fairfax, Virginia 22030-4444
Phone: 703 993 1768