How Much Do Core Journals Change over a Decade?

Abstract

This study replicates the method of identifying core journals in the field of communication disorders published in the January 2001 issue of
Library Resources and Technical Services
for the purpose of determining the degree to which the ranked list changed after ten years. Two measures are used to assess the reliability of rankings over time: Spearman's rho rank correlations among the citing journals and coefficients of variation among cited journals. Rank correlations of groups of journals can mask important changes in rank for individual titles, so characteristics of the journals with the greatest movements in rank over a decade are explored. Major findings are that the discipline's literature grew substantially over the decade, and the core journals remained stable over ten years (r
_s
= 0.73). However, despite stability of core journals over time, some titles changed dramatically in rank. Coefficients of reliability calculated for this group of communication disorders journals suggests that approximately one-third of observed change in ranks is because of random variability in works cited.