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AIS Newsletter |
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IS SECTION / AMERICAN ACCOUNTING ASSOCIATION. |
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In the Literature: Research on Research |
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SOME GUIDELINES FOR THE CRITICAL REVIEWING OF CONCEPTUAL PAPERS Rudy Hirschheim. Journal of the Association for Information Systems. Aug 2008. Vol. 9, Iss. 8; pg. 432, 10 pgs Abstract (Summary) Many scholars feel that reviewing papers is more an art than a science. Although it is not necessarily easy to ascertain a good paper from a bad paper, there are some accepted guidelines to help. These guidelines are not meant to be a cookbook, but rather a brief introduction to the art of critical reviewing. What a reviewer looks for in a paper -- quality of arguments, coherence, contribution, data, analysis, etc -- are the same no matter what type of paper it is, although conceptual papers do pose more problems, as there is no real pro forma, which, in principle at least, exists for empirical papers. The author offers a rough set of guidelines to get started. They are structured in eight areas: 1. introduction, 2. content, 3. presentation and structure, 4. theoretic foundation, 5. data analysis/interpretation/argumentation, 6. results, and 7. conclusions.
UNCOVERING THE INTELLECTUAL CORE OF THE INFORMATION SYSTEMS DISCIPLINE Anna Sidorova, Nicholas Evangelopoulos, Joseph S Valacich, Thiagarajan Ramakrishnan. MIS Quarterly. Sep 2008. Vol. 32, Iss. 3; pg. 467 Abstract (Summary) What is the intellectual core of the information systems discipline? This study uses latent semantic analysis to examine a large body of published IS research in order to address this question. Specifically, the abstracts of all research papers over the time period from 1985 through 2006 published in three top IS research journals -- MIS Quarterly, Information Systems Research, and Journal of Management Information Systems -- were analyzed. This analysis identified five core research areas: (1) information technology and organizations; (2) IS development; (3) IT and individuals; (4) IT and markets; and (5) IT and groups. Over the time frame of our analysis, these core topics have remained quite stable. However, the specific research themes within each core area have evolved significantly, reflecting research that has focused less on technology development and more on the social context in which information technologies are designed and used. As such, this analysis demonstrates that the information systems academic discipline has maintained a relatively stable research identity that focuses on how IT systems are developed and how individuals, groups, organizations, and markets interact with IT. [PUBLICATION ABSTRACT]
THE RANKING OF TOP IS JOURNALS: A PERSPECTIVE FROM THE LONDON SCHOOL OF ECONOMICS Leslie Willcocks, Edgar A Whitley, Chrisanthi Avgerou. European Journal of Information Systems. Apr 2008. Vol. 17, Iss. 2; pg. 163, 6 pgs Abstract (Summary) The Information Systems and Innovation Group at the London School of Economics has developed a distinct profile of social theory driven research across a wide range of mainstream and specialist IS topics. In this paper, we explain why we do not find existing IS journal rankings appropriate for the assessment of quality of the publications of our Group. We present a set of lists of internationally recognised outlets that we provide to the committee responsible for promotions decisions in our university and we use to advise junior staff and students on where they should publish their work. In addition to these lists, decisions on research quality in our university require the opinion of specialist experts on both the particular outlet of a publication and the publication itself. We argue for the merits of our research quality assessment approach and reflect on its risks. [PUBLICATION ABSTRACT]
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