Meet the editor of... Internet Research
An interview with: David Schwartz
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In this interview
Dr David G. Schwartz is Head of the Information Systems Division at the Graduate School of Business Adminstration, Bar-Ilan University, Israel. Dr Schwartz's research interests include computer mediated communications, distributed artificial intelligence, knowledge management, intelligent agents, and Internet-based systems, and his research has appeared in publications such as IEEE Intelligent Systems, International Journal of Human-Computer Studies, IEEE Transactions on Professional Communications, Kybernetes, and the Journal of Organizational Behavior. His books include Cooperating Heterogeneous Systems, Internet-Based Knowledge Management and Organizational Memory and the Encyclopedia of Knowledge Management. Dr Schwartz received his PhD from Case Western Reserve University, MBA from McMaster University, and BSc from the University of Toronto, Canada. Dr Schwartz is also a founding partner of Apropos IT Ventures, a venture capital fund focused on early-stage information technology investing.
Internet Research: Electronic Networking Applications and Policy, which was established in 1991, was the first publication seriously to debate the Internet, and covers the main areas of Internet research: technology, management, design, commerce, and user behaviour and expectation. The journal examines both the technological developments that facilitate these networks and also the social, ethical, economic and political implications of the age of mass information. International and peer-reviewed, it is the main journal to report on cutting-edge internet research. It is aimed at a wide audience comprising academics, communications executives, computer developers, librarians, and governmental officials, and covers a whole range of issues from technical ones such as standards, network design and operation, to managerial, organizational and public responsibility ones. Internet Research is ISI [Thomson Scientific] listed and in 2003, the journal's total cites were 189 with an impact factor of 0.690.
Internet Research predates the founding of the World Wide Web: as Electronic Networking: Research, Applications and Policy it published Tim Berners-Lee's seminal paper on the subject.
Mission and audience
How would you define the mission of Internet Research?
Our mission is to bring high quality early stage research regarding the Internet and its uses, as well as its technical impact on society to the academic and business community.
Who are your key audiences?
We aim at a broad market which covers both the academic and business community. Our audience comprises academics, communications executives, computer developers, government officials, librarians, scholarly administrators and Schools of Business, Library and Information Science.
Your journal is named Internet Research, which suggests you are primarily a journal for academic research, and yet you provide practical articles such as product and service reviews. How do you maintain a balance between research and practice?
By a variety of articles from both ends of the spectrum. Also by ensuring that research articles give examples of practical applications, and that those articles with a practical focus also include questions for further research.
You publish some quite high profile and significant research, for example "Influencing consumer behaviour: the Web experience", about the factors which positively influence people's online shopping experiences. How do you counteract the fact that the people who may most need to know about such matters – Internet applications designers and e-business managers – are probably going to be too busy to read through a research article?
Being busy is a subjective notion! We publish articles that have both benefit and impact, and people working in the field need to know about these developments. It is up to them to decide whether or not they have the time to read these articles.
How does it help you that Emerald is a sponsor of the Fourteenth International World Wide Web Conference, which has just taken place in Japan and which is one of the world's biggest Internet conferences?
This is the first year that Emerald sponsored the conference – although in fact the journal dates back to before the founding of the World Wide Web. There is a wide overlap of interest between the conference and the journal, so sponsorship had the dual benefit of bringing awareness of our content to a wide range of people and hence creating a new readership, and also bringing in a fresh flow of submissions. It creates a wonderful cycle: it builds up both the readership, and also increases the range of articles. Next year the conference is in Edinburgh: I hope that we sponsor it again!
How and when did you become ISI [Thomson Scientific] listed, and how important is ISI listing to you?
When I became editor in 1998, the journal was already ISI listed. I am happy, however, that since then the impact factor has risen from 0.22 to 0.69.
Your Editorial Advisory Board (EAB) is extremely diverse, with people from North America, the UK, Scandinavia, Australia, Israel and Africa – five continents! How else do you ensure your international coverage?
We have a very diverse author base: we publish authors from over 20 different countries, and our usage statistics indicate that 130 countries have downloaded content from the journal. Brand recognition helps a lot here, as does the EAB. I see the role of the EAB as being two-fold: firstly, to ensure the quality of articles being published by their involvement in the review process; secondly, to serve as a magnet through their research interests and international reputations. Many authors are attracted by the presence of a particular board member, and here the geographical and professional makeup of the Board helps.
Does it help that you yourself are based in a small country and therefore by circumstance are forced to recruit internationally?
The Internet by its very nature is international. You cannot have a leading-edge journal in this field without it having an international focus. I think this would be so irrespective of where I, as editor, was based.
Is Internet Research still the main journal in the area? What is your main competition?
Internet Research is one of the main journals in the area. I would say that the main competition comes from three areas. Firstly, from some of the more general information systems journals, which will publish research articles on the Internet as an information system, although their mandate is broader than the Internet. Secondly, the more technically-based journals such as IEEE Internet Computing, which is more of a magazine than a journal. Thirdly, there are those journals that concentrate on specific subareas related to the Internet such as e-commerce. Our remit, however, is wider. We look not only at e-commerce but also at a whole range of issues, including, for instance, the effect of computer-mediated communication on society, privacy security and trust, the semantic web, and other new directions that the Internet is taking.
Editorial coverage
Your journal web pages state that you examine the technology of the Internet, but under "editorial scope" you state that your primary focus is on the Internet's business and organizational applications, such as marketing, promotion, data collection, research, customer service, publishing, educational, legal and security issues. How would you define your editorial objectives?
Our main objective is to review issues to do with the application of technology in a business, governmental or whatever context, rather than looking purely at the functioning of technology or more theoretical aspect of AI on the one hand, or the business models afforded by the Internet on the other. Understanding and evaluating technologies is often fundamental to finding the correct and effective applications of those technologies – so we include both.
You indicate in a recent editorial that you favour research "that distinguishes itself by searching away from the lamplight... that breaks new ground by considering unexplored hypotheses, counterintuitive claims, and unconventional perspectives". What are some examples of unconventional research that you have published?
Many researchers do fine research but don't ask the right questions: they ask questions that have already been answered, perhaps in a different way. The best way to give impact to one's research is to ask the questions that haven't already been asked.
In another editorial, you say that "One of the wonderful aspects of dealing with a young field of research is that there is a continual flow of new ways to look at things". Have there been any research approaches you have found particularly interesting in articles you have published?
One of the benefits of working in a young field is that we don't always know what are the most effective ways of looking at things. There is great excitement in looking at something in a particular way for the first time. The EAB is diverse not only geographically but also in terms of approach and disciplinary background, so there are a variety of possible approaches on offer from different disciplines. We are often in the situation where there is no clear way of looking at a problem or coming up with a solution, which facilitates the adoption of new approaches. It's a very multidisciplinary field.
Your more technical articles – product or service reviews – seem to be written in a language that is relatively free of technical jargon. Is this a deliberate attempt to appeal to a broad audience?
It's not the case that the articles are jargon-free, but we take care that the jargon is explained. Quite a bit of editing takes place – from the reviewers, from myself as editor, and from the staff at Emerald – and in the process we try and ensure that the article is readable, and that whilst not losing its precision, any "jargon" terms are explained.
Can we look a bit more at the topics the journal covers? Do you cover wide area networks exclusively? An oft-returned theme is user behaviour. Do you consider this to be a particular issue in Internet research?
As far as network coverage is concerned, we do also deal with organizational computing. The theme of user behaviour has been important, as researchers are being exposed to the behaviour of the first generation of users. However, other emerging areas will be taking over in terms of importance: for example, the way more autonomous networks work and how these interrelate with user behaviour, the relationship between the new networks and the new users. This is very much still an evolving topic.
A special issue, "Privacy and anonymity in the digital era: theory, technologies, and practice" is in preparation - what other plans do you have for the next 18 months?
There is a special issue on privacy and anonymity in the digital era, to be guest edited by Stefanos Gritzalis, as well as a biennial issue based on papers from the International Networking Conference to be guest edited by Steve Furnell. We will also soon be announcing a call for papers for a special issue on the impact of the Semantic Web on Organizational Computing to be edited by Stefan Decker.
The publishing process
In an article on peer review ("The Hundred Years War started today: an exploration of electronic peer review"), John Peters states that "The Net offers the possibility of implementing peer review more efficiently and equitably, and of supplementing it with what is the Net's real revolutionary dimension: interactive publication in the form of open peer commentary on published work". Can you describe your own journal's use of the Internet in its peer review processes?
Communication is solely by e-mail: no paper copies are involved, so it's a very efficient process. Emerald is also working on a new web-based review management system that I hope will be in place fairly soon.
How do you manage the blind-review process to be simultaneously quality enhancing and constructive to authors?
The whole point of peer review is to be constructive rather than destructive. Neither party knows the identity of the other. A reviewer may receive a paper from a leader in the field and take the author to task if he or she finds a flaw, for which the author may be grateful as the end product is a better paper. The anonymity means that neither party is particularly concerned about either protecting or offending a reputation. Equally, a submission may come from a doctoral student which the reviewer may perceive as brilliant research unaware that its author has not yet obtained their doctorate. The blindness of the review process means that there is no bias based on the current role of the author: world class professor and doctoral student are treated equally with the sole criteria being the quality, relevance and importance of the research.
Time lag is a problem with peer review. How long does it take from submission to publication (which may be a "how long is a piece of string" question), and how do you facilitate timeliness of ideas to market in a fast moving environment?
This is always a challenge. Use of electronic communication makes things easier. The whole process is very deadline driven, and if reviewers are not able to meet the deadline then we find another reviewer. Emerald are also very quick: it only takes them two months from receiving the final copy from me to producing the finished journal.
A high percentage of Internet Research articles will be retrieved and read online. Do you think that electronic publishing of journals has made a difference to the way articles are written? For example, do you encourage specific features such as shorter paragraphs and other ways of breaking up text, hyperlinking, etc.?
I don't think that this really makes all that much difference in research articles. I think that as far as reading is concerned, people value the Internet a convenient publishing medium and retrieval method but choose to read the article in PDF form, which maintains the style and format of the printed article. Hyperlinking is important for references, but people prefer to read research articles in a linear fashion.
Again thinking about the electronic publishing process, how can authors ensure that their articles are widely disseminated and pick up the maximum number of citations and search hits?
For a start, publish in a journal with a high ISI [Thomson Scientific] factor, and whose publisher promotes the journal. Secondly, network: make others aware of your own work, and where it is published, through discussion groups, and by contacting those who are likely to be particularly interested because their own research is in some way related.
Publisher's note
Dr David G. Schwartz was interviewed in July 2005.
Visit the information page for: Internet Research