The director of our institution has asked me to help him come up with an
objective way to evaluate the publications of faculty being considered for
promotion and tenure.  His problem, as he perceives it, is that he must
evaluate the relative merits of the scholarly activities of faculty who are
active in fields outside of his own, so he wants some objective way to
measure the relative importance of their publications.  We have talked about
citation rates and impact factors as two measures, albeit with caution.  I
have done a literature search and retrieved a number of articles which are
marginally helpful.

One factor which he suggested using was the acceptance/rejection rates of
the journals where the faculty member has published.  His thinking is that
having  an article published in a journal with a high rejection rate should
rate higher than having an article published in a journal with a low
rejection rate.  Any comments?

Does anyone know of a source for the acceptance/rejection rates of journals?

If anyone has any suggestions about how to approach this problem, I would
appreciate your insights.

Thanks.

Connie Britton
Librarian
Ohio Agricultural Research & Development Center
Wooster OH
britton.4@osu.edu