What is published in our journals cannot change unless we do
European Journal of Information Systems (2009) 18, 189–191. doi:10.1057/ejis.2009.21 What is published in our journals? Complaints I have just come back from a conference where there was a ‘Meet the Editors’ Panel’. At the end of the meeting there was a discussion session, which showed some widespread lack of understanding about the process of getting an author’s paper published. This is in spite of my article four years ago that went into the issue quite thoroughly (Paul, 2005). The reader is recommended to visit this article if it has not been read yet. I have also experienced some fairly robust comments from rejected authors, which give me the impression that talking about getting a paper published would be worthwhile. Hence this editorial. First though, an unhelpful view of publishing is to distinguish editors and their teams from authors. It is as if the former came down from Mars, and as alien life forms were making life difficult for the latter. In reality, we are all part of the same community, from which some of us have been selected, or volunteered, or through some other democratic selection process, have taken on these review roles. So, if we as a community do not like anything about what is published in our subject, then it is up to all of us to do something about it, not just editors. For example: Complaint: it takes too long to get a paper into print, sometimes three or more years. Responses:
Valuing worldwide diversity in a European spirit: being more critical and open
European Journal of Information Systems (2010) 19, 495–500. doi:10.1057/ejis.2010.43 When Ray Paul and Richard Baskerville informed and encouraged me about the possibility to apply for this position of co-Editor at the European Journal of Information Systems, I felt tremendously honored, pleased and enthusiastic, but also incapable of approving. Having, during many years, been an Editor-in-Chief at Systèmes d’Information et Management (Rowe, 2006), I knew that it was also very demanding and did not feel to be up to the task. On the other hand, this was such an opportunity to be serving for a journal we greatly respected and valued – in France it is ranked among the top four journals in IS – that I could hardly refuse. I once thought that the Operational Research Society – a serious academic institution – would choose someone else. But now I have to face it. They gave me five years and I have to replace a very solid colleague – Hans van der Heijden – whom I want to thank for his excellent service in the journal. Fortunately for me, Ray and Richard as well as Sergio de Cesare, our managing Editor, Neela Rungien, our Editorial Administrator in the Brunel office, and Neil Henderson and Sharon Hewins at Palgrave, have sufficient calm and competence to hide my mistakes and continue to lead and do their work bravely. This first editorial is an extraordinary opportunity for me to present some of the ideas I have for EJIS, what it represents and what it could be. I also need to stress that these ideas are personal and that they may not all be shared by Ray and Richard. At least that they would certainly express some of them differently. As Richard told me when I had to present EJIS in South Africa, there is no party line when it comes to EJIS policy. Of course we know it is a half-truth. He probably simply wanted to encourage me to think a bit independently. By the virtue of his short education I will therefore offer of few viewpoints that I constructed based on several insights I found in our preferred press.
Panel: Meet the editors: Worldviews in editorial missions and practice
Specialized academic journals, such as the ones represented in the panel, distinguish themselves by defining an editorial policy that determines the journal’s scope and operation. They then apply the policy of dissemination and gate keeping through the reviewing process that is controlled by the editorial board. Scope is usually defined by such parameters as bodies of knowledge, types of work or research methods (conceptual, empirical, cases etc.) but also other issues such as, rigor versus relevance, local versus global emphasis, preferred authors and more.