Aggregating Referee Scores: an Algebraic Approach

This paper presents a quantitative solution to the problem of aggregating referee scores for manuscripts submitted to peer-reviewed conferences or scientific journals. The proposed approach is a particular application of the Dempster-Shafer theory to a restricted setting, from which an interesting algebraic framework results. The paper investigates the algebraic properties of this framework and shows how to apply it to the score aggregation and document ranking problems. Our scheme is intended to support the paper selection process of a conference or journal, not to replace it.