Information Systems Education Journal, ISSN: 1545-679X

About the IS Ed Journal

ISEDJ is a peer reviewed academic journal focused on the field of Informations Systems Education. The mission of ISEDJ is to publish quality papers in the field of Information Systems education. Each paper accepted into the IS Education Journal has been peer reviewed to determine its quality and its contribution to the field of IS Education. This process is closely integrated with the acceptance of papers for ISECON, mentioned on our sponsor page.

Follow the submission link to learn more about submitting your paper to ISEDJ, including its style requirements and guidelines.

ISEDJ would not exist except for the support of its sponsoring organizations. Please follow the sponsors link to learn more about them.

ISEDJ Publication Data

ISSN Number: 1545-679X.
1a. Date of First Issue: September 8, 2003.
1b. First Issue Volume designation: Volume 1, Number 1.
2. Title: Information Systems Education Journal
3. Variant Forms of the Title: IS Education Journal, IS Ed Journal, ISEDJ
4. Earlier Forms of the Title: none
5. Physical Format of Publication: ONLINE (HTTP)
7. Publisher: EDSIG, the Education Special Interest Group of AITP. AITP is the Association for Information Technology Professionals.
8. City and State of Publisher: Laie, Hawaii
9. Former Publisher: none
10. Frequency: irregular: as articles are approved; each single issue features one journal article.
11. Single Issue Price: free (just visit the URL)
12. Subscription Address: subscribe at isedj dot org
13. Subscription Price: free (just visit the URL)
14. Electronic Access Information: http://isedj.org/
15. Additional Information: Each published article is the focus of a separate single issue of ISEDJ. Issues are numbered sequentially from 1 each calendar year. There are sometimes several issues in a single day, and there may be several months with no issues. Each issue is presented in PDF (Adobe Portable Document Format) format, and includes publication information, the article itself, and biographical information about the author(s). The surrounding ISEDJ web site is not the journal, but is provided to facilitate access to the journal, and is presented in HTML (web pages) down to the level of individual articles.
16. Contact Person: Don Colton (email: editor at isedj dot org)

Editorial Comment

Stained Glass Windows

The ISEDJ logo represents a beautiful stained glass window such as one might find in an ivy-league university library. Each section of glass suggests a different discipline within IS Education. Each discipline contributes some light and beauty to the whole. Taken together the light is more radiant and pleasing than from any of the parts separately. The window reminds us that a journal should be a repository for light. The window reminds us that there is strength and beauty in diversity. The window reminds us that there are often many different ways to see the same thing. The window illustrates that all disciplines within IS meet at a common point in the center. (And the window reminds us that the traditional food of IS is pizza.)

Playful Words

The letters "ISEDJ" separate neatly into "IS" and "EDJ." This suggests the EDGE or advantage of being at the forefront of knowledge in the IS arena. You can contribute to the IS EDGE by publishing in ISEDJ.

It is not much of a stretch to hear ISEDJ pronounced "ICE AGE," but instead of meaning frozen water, we mean the "I S" (ice) of Information Systems. One could argue that what we do is also very "cool." What we do is spreading relentlessly across the earth. What we do can be catastrophic, bringing extinction to some of the old ways. What we do creates opportunities for new things that will arise. What we do is changing the world forever. We wield great power, and must do so carefully.

Publishing Ethics

As Interim Editor, I have fielded many questions and concerns that have arisen in the process of launching this new venture. Some strongly held feelings have been examined. Some questions of ethics have been broached. This section is a preliminary attempt to answer these issues as I currently see them. It is also an invitation to readers of this section: please participate in this discussion by sharing your opinions and expectations. It has been an enjoyable issue to consider.

Dual Publication: Probably the first concern that I heard raised when ISEDJ was being launched was this: is it ethical to publish the same paper twice? One person called it unethical to plagiarize yourself.

Copyright: Another underlying concern is the ownership of copyright. It appears to be almost universal that journals require authors to yield copyright, which the journals then hold. Our attitude toward copyright has been far more accommodating: authors retain copyright in general, but yield to us the right to make copies, and we further yield to our readers the right to make copies. There is no Copyright Clearing House involvement with payments to publishers and eventually authors. That is not the game we are playing.

Old World, New World: There is clearly an old world out there, dominated by great publishing houses and print media. It has been expensive to publish, and it has become lucrative to own digital rights. But in our new world hardly a day goes by without some news report of students downloading and sharing music and videos, often in casual violation of copyright or license. It is no longer expensive to publish. My sense is that the bedrock foundation of the modern publishing empires, including the scientific journals, has suddenly turned to sand. In a way, we the Information Systems community have been guilty of bringing this to pass. Information is our stock in trade. As educators, we share it freely. As IS educators, we have never understood why journals are so expensive and have such low circulations. Put up a web page. Why not? We live in a new world, but the old world still clings to its existence.

Outside The Box: There is a saying about thinking in the box and thinking outside the box. I once saw this "they say, they mean" joke: The corporation says think outside the box. What they mean is there is no more money inside the box. Out-of-box thinking has been presented as a means to solve problems by entertaining new ideas.

The Information Systems Education Journal represents a huge step outside the box, not just to solve a problem, but to seize an opportunity. It is an experiment. It may fail. I think it will be a success. It is based on the idea that we do not need to control and own your words. We are here to share your words. We are here to help your ideas be heard. We are here to help you and others improve the way you teach, or the way you think, or the performance you achieve. And we don't want your money to do it. Well, yes, we want enough to pay the rent on our web site, but that is quite small, really, and we earn that through conference and membership fees.

If we do a good job of sharing your words, we hope you will reward us by letting us share more of your words. We hope to attract your readers as our future authors, to expand the great conversation that goes on here in these papers.

Service the the Academic Community: We want to provide professional service because it is something we enjoy doing. Perhaps you publish because it helps you toward tenure. Sharing and serving is part of the academic culture. Sharing and helping are the ethics that matter most. We know that.

Is it Ethical? So I return to the questions I offered above. Is it ethical to publish the same paper twice? That all depends on the agreement you made when you published it the first time. Many publishers require an exclusive copyright in order to ensure their own financial success. By publishing your work, they seek to make it famous. It is a financial gamble. They do not want preprints. They do not want a second publisher. They do not want to be a second publisher. They do not want your paper on your own web site. They want to ensure your readers will pay them. When you publish your paper on your own web site and make it available for download beyond your close circle of colleagues, you provide a way that readers can get your words without paying your publisher. They want to sell access to your words, maybe through an annual subscription to their digital library. I think it's about money and control. They want an exclusive deal. If you agreed, you should comply. (But send us your next paper.)

No Dilemma: But if your publisher does not make this requirement, I see no ethical dilemma in publishing the same paper twice, unless there is some representation that the second copy is a new work. In ISEDJ we seek to acknowledge your achievement at the proper level and make it available to others. If you wrote a journal-quality paper, we want you to present it at ISECON and also publish it in ISEDJ. We want to give credit where credit is due.

New World Culture: I hope you agree that we publish to share and help others, and to show that we are active members of the academic community. I hope you agree that our greatest joy comes from having people listen and adopt what is good in the things we have shared. I hope you agree that your good idea will not be your last good idea, and you need not hoard it. I hope you agree that ISEDJ is your kind of journal. Welcome home.