In this last issue of this volume of the European Journal of Information Systems, we have a special section on Healthcare Information Systems Research, Revelations and Visions as well as six general papers. shows that the pagination of the journal has more or less doubled in the last 2 years compared to just 3 years ago, with this year's volume 16 well in excess of 800 pages. I believe that the quality of published papers has also risen, but if you believe in simple measures of performance such as the Citation Index, they will seem to show the opposite. So here is my debating opportunity to express my views on measures of performance again.
Table 1 Some data concerning the publication of the European Journal of Information Systems for the last 8 years/volumes
If a journal is static in its nature, publishing roughly the same number of papers per annum, then the Citation Index will show a change in the citation rate of the journal that could be considered indicative of its quality (although this has to be compared with changes in other journals to be sure the effect is local and not general).
But if a journal is expanding its output, whether or not the quality of the average paper is higher or lower, its Citation Index will go down until the expansion stops, since the Citation Index, being a lagged ratio of citations to number of papers published, will be immediately affected by the number of papers published going up.
In due course when an expanding journal stops expanding or even shrinking, the Citation index will improve again. In some journal rankings dramatic improvements in the Citation Index are not a measure of improved quality of a journal, but merely a reduction in the number of papers published. But this improvement can only be continued by reducing the journal output year on year.
But how, in spite of the Citation Index, would I justify the claim that the European Journal of Information Systems is increasing in quality as well as in size? We have a well-established refereeing process where papers are put out to an Associate Editor who finds two referees to help review the submission and its revisions until publication or rejection. The only change in this quality aspect of the European Journal of Information Systems is the increasing number of volunteers we get who want to be Associate Editors because it will be good experience and help their career. In other words, because they wish to work with and be associated with a quality journal. And being ambitious, they tend to be very effective at reviewing for the same reason. So I perceive the general papers to be of improving interest and quality.
The European Journal of Information Systems moved to six issues a year for the last 2 years and every issue has either been a Special Issue or had a Special Section in it. We have rarely asked for special issues to be proposed to us, they come in of their own motivation. So whereas 2 years ago in four issues we did not always have such content in each issue, now the demand to guest edit is clearly rising. This can only be career beneficial if guest editing is for a quality journal, so I take market forces to be another positive indicator.
And lastly the opinion papers are starting to encourage authors to write their own opinion papers as readers find these papers more interesting and readable in general. I consider that to be a mark of quality too.
This is my last editorial as Editor-in-Chief and I now leave you in the capable hands of Richard Baskerville, who will be supported by his two editorial colleagues, Hans van Heijden and me. In the last 2 years I have written eight editorials for 12 issues, so I am looking forward to having the time to finish an autobiographical book that I can recommend to you when it is published in 2008 (CitationPaul, 2008).
References
- Paul RJ (2008) Living with Parkinsonism: Shake, Rattle and Roll.