Global Information Systems Research Papers (original) (raw)

Every July, journal impact factors (JIFs) for the preceding year are released. JIFs are eagerly anticipated as proxies for journal quality and influence (Lowry et al., 2013), although we acknowledge a longstanding countermovement that rejects such journal-level metrics and argues that only article-level quality and impact should be assessed or that suggests other impact measures (e.g., Bollen et al., 2005; Leydesdorff, 2012). We also acknowledge the inherent risks associated with scientometric analysis of journal impact (cf. Clarke, 2016), especially in drawing inferences about what anyone (publisher, editor, author, or reader) might do as a result of that analysis. The most-reported JIF covers two years, with a simple formula as follows: JIF (2022) = (citations to citable articles published in 2019 & 2020) / (# articles published in 2021).
In 2020, the calculation was slightly modified to include within the denominator the count of articles appearing in Early View (i.e., articles already accepted but not yet assigned to an issue) and within the numerator citations to citable articles from Early View. Editors, publishers and scientometric researchers anticipated that this might lead to a temporary spike in JIFs. A two-year JIF favors journals that publish quickly-cited articles while a five-year JIF captures the longer-term citation impact. Thus, it would not be unreasonable to count JIFs for 10 or more years, because, in some disciplines (notably the humanities) articles take many years to build sufficient reputation to be cited. Google Scholar’s h5 index is relevant here, as it offers a broader view of how many well-cited papers a journal has published over a five-year period.
In 2020, we noticed significant spikes in the JIFs of several leading information systems (IS) journals, both inside and outside the Association for Information Systems (AIS) basket of eight (AIS-8) premier journals. A moderate degree of JIF fluctuation is normal, and few journals increase steadily year after year, but the changes in 2020 were remarkable. As example, the JIF for the Journal of Strategic Information Systems (JSIS) rose from 3.949 in 2019 to 7.838 in 2020; likewise, Information & Organization (I&O), rose to from 3.300 to 6.300. Every other major IS journal saw significant increases. In analyzing the patterns, the scope of our editorial is to discuss the implications for the top 13 IS journals, beginning with the AIS-8: European Journal of Information Systems (EJIS), Information Systems Journal (ISJ), Information Systems Research (ISR), Journal of Information Technology (JIT), Journal of the Association for Information Systems (JAIS), Journal of Management Information Systems (JMIS), Journal of Strategic Information Systems (JSIS), and Management Information Systems Quarterly (MISQ). We also included five well-regarded and highly cited IS journals outside the AIS-8: Decision Support Systems (DSS), Information & Management (I&M), Information & Organization (I&O), International Journal of Information Management (IJIM), and IT & People (IT&P).