Impact-adjusted citations as a measure of journal quality

We provide a simple theoretical foundation, based on the theory of Markov chains, for the objective empirical procedure for journal ranking devised by Liebowitz and Palmer. An elementary characterization is derived that substantially clarifies the meaning, scope and underlying intuition of the procedure, and allows a precise illustrative discussion of its strengths and weaknesses. Several suggestions are made to correct its shortcomings, which may prove useful in much-needed future rankings. The present analysis suggests that a suitably amended version of the LP procedure would emerge as a highly adequate measure for ranking journals.