Editorial—On the Intellectual Structure and Evolution of ISR

Abstract

S cholars within fields frequently introspect about the evolution of their research disciplines, asking if the discipline is developing a cumulative research tradition, influencing scholarly work in other fields, and expanding its boundaries. In this spirit, I examine the intellectual structure and evolution of one disciplinary journal, ISR, over the most recent four-year period (2012)(2013)(2014)(2015). I use a census of citation data and classify journals citing ISR and cited by ISR into the disciplines they represent. Analyzing 12,833 citations to ISR from 100 journals, and 7,731 citations from ISR to papers published in 67 journals I find that, consistent with prior studies, ISR reflects the multidisciplinarity of the information systems (IS) discipline, its boundaries are expanding to include new disciplines, and the journal draws extensively on other IS journals. I raise some questions for further introspection about the impact and visibility of IS research.

Knowledge Structure Analysis on Educational Technology Based on Citation Analysis

“…Leydesdorff [10] proposed that the citation relationship between journals is of great value, and different analysis methods can be used to obtain results with different emphasis. R. Agarwal took ISR journals as the research object and collected reference and citation data from 2012 to 2015, which confirmed the multidisciplinary nature of the information system discipline and the continuous expansion of discipline boundaries [11]. Krapivsky and Redner [12] pointed out that the citing literature is not only cited in the same field, but also cited and disseminated in similar and different fields, thereby promoting the generation of new knowledge, and the absorption and diffusion of knowledge through subject papers can also be good Geo-measure the cross-fusion of knowledge in this field with other fields.…”

On the intellectual structure and influence of tourism social science research

“…The remaining articles (416) did not receive any citation. Before proceeding with the analysis, following Agarwal (2016), we adopted a data reduction procedure. Any source cited less than 25 times by Annals and citing articles published in the journal less than 25 times over the 47-year period were removed from our analysis.…”

“…When the disciplinary classification was not obvious from the journal name, we consulted existing discipline-related indices, journal classification lists, the journal's website and its editorial policy, and relevant academic studies (e.g. Agarwal, 2016;Kim et al, 2009). We also sought the advice of senior colleagues from the academy where necessary.…”

“…To understand the influence of Annals (knowledge outflows), we analyze all works (within and outside tourism) in which Annal's articles appear as a reference. The benefits of using references over citation counts to analyze the intellectual structure of a discipline are documented in the literature on scientomretrics (Bornmann & Mark, 2013;Marx & Bornmann, 2014, 2016. It is important to highlight that our study is at the 'macro-level', involving a disciplinary-level investigation based on all references used by Annals and on all works that have referenced the journal's articles over 47 years, and not a (co)citation analysis of individual articles -the 'micro-level'.…”