In three years, we won’t be revising our papers anymore
this IS research
Jan is annoyed because he needs to revise his papers and respond to his reviewers. Why can’t ChatGPT or Claude do this for him? Why aren’t we doing this already? So we start to wonder: what will happen to paper writing, reviews, and revisions as we enter an age where science practice is imbued with AI? How important are framing, literature engagement, and prose when AI use will homogenize communication? How important are method skills when analytics can be automated? What skills should emerging researchers focus on to maintain or create a competitive edge? And will publishing move towards...
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Who wants to be a this IS research expert? Jan’s turn
this IS research
Does Jan really know what he is talking about? Like we did with Nick last time, we play another round of trivia questions about information systems research – but now Nick is the host and Jan is the player. How well does he know the field? Tune in to find out. And like last time, you can play our game for yourself. The questions are posted below. Play the game for yourself: Round 1 Question: MIS Quarterly is physically headquartered and historically associated with which American university? A. MIT B. Georgia State University C. Indiana University D. University of Minnesota Round 2...
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Who wants to be a this IS research expert?
this IS research
Does Nick really know what he is talking about? Time to find out. We play a trivia quiz with fifteen questions about information systems research. Nick has an audience joker, a telephone joker, and a 50:50 joker -and he needs all of them to make it through the levels. How well do you know the field? Tune in to find out, or play our game for yourself. The questions are posted below. Play the game for yourself: Round 1 Question: Which three journals were added when the AIS Senior Scholars expanded the old Basket of Eight into the 11-journal premier list in 2023? A. DSS, I&M, and...
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Do you prefer a prestigious or a rigorous journal?
this IS research
Journals play an important role for academics. They disseminate new knowledge and separate good from bad research. They also signal competencies, reputation, and standing. Publishing in certain journals often means your work is more rigorous. It may also mean your work is more visible and gets cited more often. Plus, having your work appear in certain journals can be an important prerequisite for career advancement and it can literally affect your salary. Yet of course, these different functions can be evaluated in different ways. Not all journals score equally high or low on all these...
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If you’re not using ChatGPT to cheat in research, you’re not going with the times
this IS research
Let’s say we are unethical people, trying to get ahead in academia and gain accolades for the sake of promotion and income and so forth. In an age where artificial intelligence and LLMs are entering the academic enterprise, has “cheating” changed? Are there new ways of fabricating, fudging, cooking, trimming, and lying about your data, your insights, and your writing? Do we cheat the way we’ve always cheated, just more effectively and efficiently? Or do we not actually cheat but merely change the rules and norms of scholarship? Tune in and find out. References Noblit, G. W.,...
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The definitive guide to ranking IS journals
this IS research
In 2026, everything is different. AI is scaling both research and publishing productivity. Impact factors no longer matter. Big name journal publishers launch offspring journals with little credentials other than the brand. How should we make sense of all this to figure out which journals are really important to our field? It is time for a new, rigorous ranking of IS journals. Problem is, we cannot really agree on our ranks and our reasons. You need to help us: give us your top ten ranking of IS journals with your reasoning. Together, we can find out what is best for our field going...
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Nick and Jan reporting live from the International Conference on Information Systems
this IS research
As usual in the final episode of the year, we hand out three awards for what we think are some of the finest pieces of information systems scholarship produced this year. Except that this time, we are live at the in Nashville, Tennessee, in a room packed with our listeners. While this means the quality of the audio of our recording is not so great, the quality of the papers we honor this year is. And with a room full of laughter celebrating great information systems scholarship, we end the year on a high note. Congratulations to Stefan, Christoph, and Jan for winning the Trailblazing...
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Doing research on prime ministers
this IS research
It only took us five years but we finally got on the podcast. We have been talking about him and his scholarship for a while. Today we finally get to ask him about his recent technology regulation paper, his view on grounded theorizing in information systems, his forthcoming special issue on Ethics, Regulation, and Policy that will start processing submissions in late 2026--and his bet with Nick Berente about who wins the race to 8000 citations. Episode reading list Seidel, S., Frick, C. J., & vom Brocke, J. (2025). Regulating Emerging Technologies: Prospective Sensemaking through...
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Managing academics is like herding cats
this IS research
Some academics go into the office every day; some are rarely ever seen on campus. Is one way better than the other? Who better to ask than the brilliant who spent her career on the topic of remote work and its implications for belonging, community, collaboration, and performance. She points out that academia has always been a distributed and flexible profession. Researchers need flexibility and freedom to figure out their own best way of solving problems and doing their work, some of which may mean sitting at a desk, but maybe also involve lab or field work. On the other hand, pure freedom...
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When you watch Tik Tok, your maturity in the academic enterprise is zero
this IS research
A key problem in empirically oriented research, especially inductive and abductive work, is figuring out which theoretical lens or scaffold to apply to uncover novel insights. In other words, which theory should you use? We discuss a few heuristics scholars can draw on to reach a higher level of scholarly maturity, namely disposition, empirical salience, outcome definition, skepticism, and reflexivity. Episode reading list Recker, J. (2021). Scientific Research in Information Systems: A Beginner's Guide (2nd ed.). Springer. Quine, W. V. O. (1961). Two Dogmas of Empiricism. In W. V....
info_outlineDoes Nick really know what he is talking about? Time to find out. We play a trivia quiz with fifteen questions about information systems research. Nick has an audience joker, a telephone joker, and a 50:50 joker -and he needs all of them to make it through the levels. How well do you know the field? Tune in to find out, or play our game for yourself. The questions are posted below.
Play the game for yourself:
Round 1
Question: Which three journals were added when the AIS Senior Scholars expanded the old Basket of Eight into the 11-journal premier list in 2023?
A. DSS, I&M, and I&O
B. DSS, ISJ, and JSIS
C. CAIS, I&M, and IT&P
D. DSS, JIT, and I&O
Round 2
Question: In Fred Davis’s 1989 TAM paper, which two beliefs are the famous core constructs?
A. Trust and enjoyment
B. Performance expectancy and effort expectancy
C. Perceived usefulness and perceived ease of use
D. Social influence and facilitating conditions
Round 3
Question: Which paper introduced UTAUT?
A. Venkatesh & Davis, 2000, Management Science
B. Davis, 1989, MIS Quarterly
C. Venkatesh et al., 2003, MIS Quarterly
D. Venkatesh, Thong, & Xu, 2012, MIS Quarterly
Round 4
Question: The original DeLone and McLean paper, “Information Systems Success: The Quest for the Dependent Variable,” appeared in which year?
A. 1988
B. 1990
C. 1992
D. 2003
Round 5
Question: Which paper is generally credited with introducing Action Design Research (ADR) into the IS mainstream?
A. Hevner et al. (2004), MISQ
B. Sein et al. (2011), MISQ
C. Gregor & Hevner (2013), MISQ
D. Peffers et al. (2007), JMIS
Round 6
Question: Which paper is the 2017 MISQ piece on platform ecosystems with the subtitle-like claim “How Developers Invert the Firm”?
A. Parker, Van Alstyne, & Jiang
B. Constantinides, Henfridsson, & Parker
C. Eisenmann, Parker, & Van Alstyne
D. Ghazawneh & Henfridsson
Round 7
Question: Which paper is the most impactful technostress article in Information Systems research?
A. Tarafdar et al. (2007), JMIS, The impact of technostress on role stress and productivity
B. Ragu-Nathan et al. (2008), ISR, The consequences of technostress for end users in organizations
C. Tarafdar et al. (2010), JMIS, Impact of technostress on end-user satisfaction and performance
D. Tarafdar, Pullins, & Ragu-Nathan (2015), ISJ, Technostress: negative effect on performance and possible mitigations
Round 8
Question: As of March 2026, which of the following papers has the highest Google Scholar citation count?
A. Venkatesh et al. (2003) UTAUT
B. Yoo, Henfridsson, & Lyytinen (2010) The New Organizing Logic
C. Hevner et al. (2004) Design Science in Information Systems Research
D. Davenport (1993) Process innovation: reengineering work through information technology
Round 9
Question: In digital-platform research, the phrase “boundary resources model” is most closely associated with which paper?
A. Ghazawneh & Henfridsson (2013), ISJ
B. Constantinides, Henfridsson, & Parker (2018), ISR
C. Parker, Van Alstyne, & Jiang (2017), MISQ
D. Yoo, Henfridsson, & Lyytinen (2010), ISR
Round 10
Question: In IS economics / IT business value research, which paper is the classic article on information worker productivity?
A. Brynjolfsson & Hitt, 1996, MISQ
B. Aral, Brynjolfsson, & Van Alstyne, 2012, ISR
C. Aral & Weill, 2007, Org. Science
D. Brynjolfsson, Rock, & Syverson, 2017, NBER
Level 11
Question: In Feldman and Pentland’s routines work, which pairing is correct?
A. Ostensive = abstract pattern or idea of the routine; Performative = specific enactments by specific people at specific times and places
B. Ostensive = formal SOP; Performative = deviations from the SOP
C. Ostensive = managerial intention; Performative = worker resistance
D. Ostensive = organizational memory; Performative = organizational forgetting
Level 12
Question: Which statement best captures Paul Leonardi’s (2013) position on sociomateriality?
A. Materiality and human interpretation are always inseparable, so affordances and constraints cannot be analytically distinguished from materiality.
B. Materiality exists independently of people, but affordances and constraints do not; they arise in relation to human goals.
C. Sociomateriality should only be grounded in agential realism, not critical realism.
D. The social and the material are separable in theory, but not in empirical research.
Level 13
Question: The 2010 ISR research commentary “Digital Infrastructures: The Missing IS Research Agenda” is associated with which set of authors?
A. Yoo, Henfridsson, and Lyytinen
B. Tilson, Lyytinen, and Sørensen
C. Hanseth, Monteiro, and Hatling
D. Eaton, Elaluf-Calderwood, Sorensen, and Yoo.
Level 14
Question: Which paper examined whether participation in the gig economy is associated with entrepreneurial activity, and who are its authors?
A. Burtch, Carnahan, and Greenwood (2018), Management Science
B. Greenwood, Agarwal, Agarwal, and Gopal (2019), Organization Science
C. Burtch, Ghose, and Wattal (2013), Information Systems Research
D. Greenwood and Wattal (2017), MIS Quarterly
Level 15
Question: In Kellogg, Valentine, and Christin’s “Algorithms at Work: The New Contested Terrain of Control” framework, which set correctly names the six mechanisms of algorithmic control?
A. Restricting, recommending, recording, rating, replacing, rewarding
B. Ranking, routing, recording, rewarding, reviewing, removing
C. Restricting, routing, reviewing, ranking, replacing, rewarding
D. Recommending, recording, rating, regulating, replacing, remunerating