Author experiences with the IS journal review process

Abstract

Many IS researchers often face a difficult decision in choosing publication outlets for their research work, as some review process factors are often not well-defined for particular outlets. For example, for time-critical research, a journal with quicker turn-around time (ceteris paribus) might be a better avenue for the work to reach the audience in the shortest time possible. In addition, finding such information is difficult. For example, process information for the same journal is not consistent across individuals, and even across manuscripts submitted by the same individual to a particular journal. This research focuses on quantifying certain metrics in the IS journal review process that are important, yet not well-known to prospective authors. We collected more than 1100 observations on these metrics from 307 authors who experienced the review process. This study provides an initial attempt to pool individual and anecdotal information of these factors into a knowledge repository for current researchers which may help them to make effective decisions on targeting journal outlets. Using concepts from process design and quality control literature, we determine if the review process is under control. Finally, we correlate our findings of these factors with journal rankings from published studies to detect if rankings are impacted by the factors identified by journal editors and researchers. Our results provide a knowledge base of â ¢ the length and quality of the review process in various journals; â ¢ responsiveness of the journal office and publication delay; and â ¢ correlations of metrics with published studies of journal rankings. The data should enable authors to make effective submission decisions, as well as help to benchmark journal review processes among competing journals.