Playing the Rating Game [From the Editor]

It seems as though much of our activities these days are associated with some type of rating. Football teams are evaluated in an effort to predict their outcome at the end of the season. Recorded music is evaluated based on sales. Universities are rated as to the quality of their education and research. Scientific journals are rated by the score that is familiar to all of us: the impact factor. All of these rating scores and lists of organizations, events, and products from best to worst, or as we in academia referred to, by percentile score, are supposed to help us make choices.