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Research standards for promotion and tenure in information systems

Authors:

Alan R. Dennis,

Joseph S. Valacich,

Mark A. Fuller,

Christoph SchneiderAuthors Info & Claims

MIS Quarterly, Volume 30, Issue 1

Pages 1 - 12

Published: 01 March 2006 Publication History

Abstract

What constitutes excellence in information systems research for promotion and tenure? This is a question that is regularly addressed by members of promotion and tenure committees and those called upon to write external letters. While there are many elements to this question, one major element is the quality and quantity of an individual's research publications. An informal survey of senior Information Systems faculty members at 49 leading U.S. and Canadian universities found 86 percent to expect three or more articles in elite journals. In contrast, an analysis of publication performance of Ph.D. graduates between the years of 1992 and 2004 found that approximately three individuals in each graduating year of Ph.D.s (about 2 percent) published 3 or more articles in a set of 20 elite journals within 6 years of graduation. Only 15 individuals from each graduating year (11 percent) published one or more articles. As a discipline, we publish elite journal articles at a lower rate than Accounting, yet our promotion and tenure standards are higher, similar to those of Management, Marketing, and Finance. Thus, there is a growing divergence between research performance and research standards within the Information Systems discipline. As such, unless we make major changes, these differences will perpetuate a vicious cycle of increasing faculty turnover, declining influence on university affairs, and lower research productivity. We believe that we must act now to create a new future, and offer recommendations that focus on the use of more appropriate standards for promotion and tenure and ways to increase the number of articles published.

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Cited By

Chen LHolsapple CHsiao SKe ZOh JYang Z(2017)Knowledge-dissemination channelsJournal of the Association for Information Science and Technology10.1002/asi.2372568:4(911-930)Online publication date: 1-Apr-2017
https://dl.acm.org/doi/10.1002/asi.23725
McGill MSettle ASmith RVrbsky S(2012)Institutional support for computing faculty research productivityProceedings of the 50th annual ACM Southeast Conference10.1145/2184512.2184522(36-41)Online publication date: 29-Mar-2012
https://dl.acm.org/doi/10.1145/2184512.2184522
Ayanso ALertwachara KVachon F(2011)Design and behavioral science research in premier is journalsProceedings of the 6th international conference on Service-oriented perspectives in design science research10.5555/2008579.2008591(138-152)Online publication date: 5-May-2011
https://dl.acm.org/doi/10.5555/2008579.2008591
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Research standards for promotion and tenure in information systems

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cover image MIS Quarterly

MIS Quarterly Volume 30, Issue 1

March 2006

210 pages

ISSN:0276-7783

Issue’s Table of Contents

Publisher

Society for Information Management and The Management Information Systems Research Center

United States

Publication History

Published: 01 March 2006

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Cited By

Chen LHolsapple CHsiao SKe ZOh JYang Z(2017)Knowledge-dissemination channelsJournal of the Association for Information Science and Technology10.1002/asi.2372568:4(911-930)Online publication date: 1-Apr-2017
https://dl.acm.org/doi/10.1002/asi.23725
McGill MSettle ASmith RVrbsky S(2012)Institutional support for computing faculty research productivityProceedings of the 50th annual ACM Southeast Conference10.1145/2184512.2184522(36-41)Online publication date: 29-Mar-2012
https://dl.acm.org/doi/10.1145/2184512.2184522
Ayanso ALertwachara KVachon F(2011)Design and behavioral science research in premier is journalsProceedings of the 6th international conference on Service-oriented perspectives in design science research10.5555/2008579.2008591(138-152)Online publication date: 5-May-2011
https://dl.acm.org/doi/10.5555/2008579.2008591
McGill MSettle AGoda BSobiesk EConnolly R(2011)Computing faculty tenure and promotion requirements at USA and Canadian post-secondary institutionsProceedings of the 2011 conference on Information technology education10.1145/2047594.2047632(133-138)Online publication date: 20-Oct-2011
https://dl.acm.org/doi/10.1145/2047594.2047632
Chen H(2011)EditorialACM Transactions on Management Information Systems10.1145/1929916.19299172:1(1-10)Online publication date: 18-Mar-2011
https://dl.acm.org/doi/10.1145/1929916.1929917
Holsapple C(2008)A publication power approach for identifying premier information systems journalsJournal of the American Society for Information Science and Technology10.5555/1331268.133126959:2(166-185)Online publication date: 1-Jan-2008
https://dl.acm.org/doi/10.5555/1331268.1331269
Saunders CBenbasat I(2007)Editor's commentsMIS Quarterly10.5555/2017336.201733731:3(iii-xviii)Online publication date: 1-Sep-2007
https://dl.acm.org/doi/10.5555/2017336.2017337
Scholl H(2006)Is e-government research a flash in the pan or here for the long shot?Proceedings of the 5th international conference on Electronic Government10.1007/11823100_2(13-24)Online publication date: 4-Sep-2006
https://dl.acm.org/doi/10.1007/11823100_2

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