1. An apparatus, comprising: a processor; and a memory that comprises a plurality of components that are executed by the processor, the plurality of components comprising: a receiver component that receives first scores for training points and second scores for the training points, wherein the first scores are individually assigned to the training points by a first ranker component and the second scores are individually assigned to the training points by a second ranker component; and a determiner component in communication with the receiver component that automatically outputs a value for a parameter α based at least in part upon the first scores and the second scores, wherein α is used to linearly combine the first ranker component and the second ranker component, the determiner component comprising a metric computer component that uses an information retrieval metric method to determine the value of α, such that the value α corresponds to an optimal linear combination of the first and second ranker components with respect to the information retrieval metric method, the information retrieval metric method being one of Normalized Discounted Cumulative Gain, Mean Average Precision, Mean Reciprocal Rank, Bpref, Q-measure, or generalized average precision.