JAIS distribution and readership information
JAIS enjoys wide and extensive readership and large visibility in the global IS community. Being an electronic journal we have real time information on our readership size and access patterns, and the geographical distribution of our patrons. During 2006 JAIS website received on average c.a. 700 visits by day and on average 22 000 visits per month. The number of visitors has been growing by 20% since 2005. The most popular articles reach over 1000 downloads/year.

The reach of JAIS readership is global and covers most countries and areas in the world. Though U.S. dominates access statistics and download accounting for c.a. 70% of the visits JAIS enjoys significant interest in Australia, Canada, France, United Kingdom, China, Malaysia, Singapore among others.

JAIS ranking information
During its short life time – the first JAIS article was published in 2000- JAIS has gained a strong reputation of publishing high quality theory focused articles in Information Systems field. This is well testified by the rapidly increased rankings and many recent decisions by some of the leading departments in our field to rank JAIS as an “A” outlet. The journal has also been nimble in responding to new intellectual needs within the community as recent publications in digital divide or the special issue in the Research Perspectives on Technology Acceptance Model testify. The number of submissions, the number of published articles and the number of readers have been marked by a steady growth so that in all respects. JAIS already qualifies as an A level journal (see below).

Some statistics will suffice here. The acceptance rate of JAIS is currently less than 12% which is on a par with other major outlets in the field. It is indexed by all major indexing services including ISI (Thompson) and EBSCO. Our submissions have been growing at the rate of 30-40% per year and are currently at the level c.a. 200 manuscript / year. This enables us to publish high quality articles with a steady flow. The editorial board is composed of world class scholars who cover all major topic in information systems and have extensive editorial experience. The review policies and practices are similar to those followed in any top level journals and JAIS seeks to promote bold and rigorous scholarship.

Anne-Wil Harzing (http://www.harzing.com/jql.htm) has aggregated multiple (16) measures on quality for academic journals in the field of business and management. In this ranking JAIS is included and is rated as B on the Wien Journal Rating 2001, A according to the Association of Professors of Mgmt in German speaking countries, and 3 with the Cranfield University School of Management. When measured by the currently used top level journal lists used in making tenure and promotion decisions in the U.S. JAIS ranks on the 9th place among all the IS journals. When measured by the quality of the departments from which the authors of JAIS articles come from JAIS ranks currently as the 3rd among all IS journals (see Thomas W. Ferratt, Michael F. Gorman, John J. Kanet, Wm. David Salisbury: “IS Journal Quality Assessment Using the Author Affiliation Index” CAIS, Volume 19 Article 34 June, 2007) Overall, JAIS fares increasingly well in rankings, if one takes into account the age of the journal (see http://www.aisworld.org/csaunders/rankings.htm).

Several factors that have contributed to rapidly improved rankings including low acceptance rates and the quality and academic weight of the editorial board, and the quality of reviewing.

JAIS Reviewing principles and goals
Active scholarship requires a broader perspective on peer review and its place in scholarly enterprise. This issue has been raised within the IS field: there was a panel on the topic at the ICIS 2005 meeting (see Paul Gray, Kalle J. Lyytinen, Carol Saunders, Richard T. Watson, Leslie P. Willcocks, Vladimir Zwass: "How Shall We Manage Our Journals in the Future? A Discussion of Richard T. Watson’s Proposals at ICIS 2004", CAIS Volume 18 Article 14 September, 2006, (see http://cais.aisnet.org/articles/default.asp?vol=18&art=14). It is also under discussion in the broader realm of scholarship, as seen in a recent Science article, "Is peer review broken?" (20 (2), 2006). Journal submissions are increasing across disciplines, with some journals receiving staggering numbers each year, such as 6000 at JAMA and 12000 at Science. Naturally, the number of reviews being done is increasing as well. At the same time, reviewing appears to be increasingly political and error prone. Reviewers are more likely to accept work that cites their own work, yet journal editors do not consistently check on possible conflicts of interest. Some studies show acceptance for publication of papers with only 37 % agreement among reviewers, suggesting political or other motives for acceptance. Studies show reviewer failure to recognize common errors and other problems in manuscripts: experiments have shown reviewers catching an average of only one-quarter to one-third of errors introduced deliberately into a manuscript. Reviewers tend to accept only statistically significant results that reject the null hypothesis, and they tend to reject replication studies that cannot replicate previously published results, exacerbating the so-called "file drawer problem" in which authors submit only their significant findings while leaving their non-significant findings in the file drawers. It is fair to wonder whether peer review is not just a lottery.

This situation frustrates diligent authors. Good work is rejected, and the quality of published articles fails to rise despite increasing submissions and long review cycles. Technically "sound" but intellectually boring papers are published, while truly interesting work is weeded out. Findings and conclusions in many published papers are overstated, while limitations of the research are brushed aside. This dismal situation is difficult to explain: it probably has something to do with the pernicious effect of rankings systems on tenure and promotion committee assessments. On one hand, the IS field can feel good that it is not alone in this nasty situation, but on the other hand, the situation truly is nasty. It is important to note that this situation is not the result of deliberate action to make the peer review process work poorly. Thousands of editors and reviewers work hard to improve the intellectual sharpness and soundness of submitted papers, and ensure that bold and interesting scholarship is published. This is an ecological problem, with many complicated dimensions.

The JAIS community cannot address all the dimensions of this ecological problem, but it can adjust how it operates its own review system to serve the IS community in the best way. JAIS starts with the conclusion that the peer review system, for all its faults, is the best mechanism available to ensure quality. In addition, it makes more sense to fix the problems that can be addressed right away, and leave the more challenging issues for later. A good way to begin is to re-frame the purpose of the peer review process in a more realistic way than has been the case in the recent past.

Peer review as practiced today emerged from open dialogues and debates that followed paper "readings" in 18th century scientific society meetings. Members stood and read their papers aloud, and their colleagues responded with debate and criticism from the floor. Revisions, refinement and rebuttals took place in real time, and a revised paper usually showed up subsequently in print. As printed scientific journals became more prominent and meetings were supplemented by communication at a distance, papers were circulated and written comments and rebuttals were provided to the author before the publication. This evolved into to the current journal review system. In both models, the essential element is the discussion of the ideas, not the suppression of incomplete work. In fact, the whole purpose of the exercise is to keep useful scholarship going in the right direction. To achieve this, scholars created through the peer reviewed journal process an invisible Peircean community of inquiry in which people learn from one another, and revise and refine their thought as a result. JAIS follows this principle by advocating developmental reviews. The process is as follows: The process starts when a SE screens a submission for potential contribution and ask: is this new, is this interesting, is this believable? Many submissions are rejected at this stage, but the SE tries to give authors comments that help them to make their paper stronger. When the SE feels the submission warrants review, an implied commitment is made by the SE to work with the author(s) on the paper to make it publishable. Reviewers are asked to critique the paper, offer constructive comments, and suggest whether the paper is worth of publishing. Reviewers are expected to provide constructive comments for improvement even if the recommendation is to reject the paper. The SE takes these recommendations into account when responding to the author(s). If the paper is revised and returned, the process might go through one more round of review, although normally it will not go more than two rounds before a conclusion is reached to reject or publish the paper. The goal of the review process is to recognize the potential contribution of the submission as quickly as possible, and to work with the author(s) to make the final product as good as it can be, whether published in JAIS or elsewhere.