Factors which are considered in this survey (with different weight) for each president:

• Background
• Party Leadership
• Communication Ability
• Congress Relations
• Court Appointments
• Handling Economy
• Luck
• Compromise Ability
• Risk Taking
• Executive Appointments
• Overall Ability
• Imagination
• Domestic Accomplishments
• Executive Ability
• Foreign Policy
• Leadership
• Intelligence
• Crucial Mistakes
• Expert’s View

The poll is conducted by the Siena Research Institute (SRI) is an affiliate of Siena College, located originally in Friars Hall and now in Hines Hall on the college's campus, in Loudonville, New York, in suburban Albany. It was founded in 1980.

It conducts both expert and public opinion polls, focusing on New York State and the United States, on issues of public policy interest.

Among other things, starting in 1982 SRI has polled presidential scholars in an effort to rate both the United States presidents and U.S. First Ladies.

The C-SPAN Survey of Presidential Leadership consists of rankings from a group of presidential historians and "professional observers of the presidency" who ranked presidents in a number of categories initially in 2000 and more recently in 2017.

With some minor variation, both surveys found that historians consider Abraham Lincoln, George Washington, and Franklin D. Roosevelt the three best presidents by a wide margin and William Henry Harrison (to a lesser extent), Warren G. Harding, Andrew Johnson, Franklin Pierce and James Buchanan the worst.

• This survey was was administered by Brandon Rottinghaus of the University of Houston and Justin S. Vaughn of Boise State University.
• It is based on 162 questionnaires that were completed online in 2014 by members of the American Political Science Association’s Presidents & Executive Politics section, the premier organization of experts of the American presidency.
• The results of the survey are not far from the previous lists. The main difference is that Clinton and Eisenhower are now among the top 10. Also Kennedy is lower than usual.
• Kennedy is considered (by the scholars of this survey) overrated. The most underrated: Eisenhower, George H.W. Bush and Truman.
• All surveys agree on who were the worst presidents: Buchanan was the lowest ranked, and was joined at the bottom by Warren Harding, Andrew Johnson, Franklin Pierce and William Harrison (this one only because he was 40 days in Office).
• It is too early to fully assess Trump or even Obama and Bush. History is always shaping and reshaping the legacy of former presidents. As in the case of Eisenhower and Clinton, presidential legacies can improve with time. This seems especially likely when presidents serve more than one term, preside over economic prosperity, and effectively handle international conflict.