Applying the author affiliation index to library and information science journals

The Author Affiliation Index (AAI) of a journal (or set of journals) is defined as the percentage of authors publishing in that journal (or set) who are affiliated with a predetermined group of top-rated universities (or university departments). The AAI has been used to answer the following question: “Do faculty at the most prestigious universities have a disproportionate presence in the premier journals?” Harless and Reilly (1998) conceived the AAI and described its application in an internal working paper at Virginia Commonwealth University. Gorman and Kanet (2005) subsequently used it to evaluate systematically a set of journals in the field of operations management. Chen and Huang (2007) used the AAI to rank a set of finance journals, and Ferratt, Gorman, Kanet, and Salisbury (2007) used the index to assess information systems journals. Each of these studies concluded that the AAI constitutes a credible and easy-touse means of rating journals and correlates positively with existing domain-specific rankings such as faculty surveys of journal quality (for additional confirmatory evidence in this regard, see Gorman & Kanet, 2007, p. 53). The AAI, it is claimed, offers an alternative journalranking method to bibliometric indicators (e.g., impact factor) and opinion surveys, one that it is “robust . . . relatively objective, transparent, and stable” (Gorman & Kanet, 2005,