Journal Rakings 2008: A Synthesis of Studies

New journal rankings studies seem to be almost as prevalent as new MIS journals, recently. As doctoral students in our field become new colleagues and approach the publication process for tenure and promotion, they are in need of guidance in the selection of publication outlets at which to target their work as emerging scholars. Moreover, our colleagues in IS frequently publish in allied disciplines, and can benefit from guidance on the relative rankings of non-IS journals for use in their evaluation and promotions processes. In the past 5 years, numerous articles presenting alternative journal ranking schemes have been published, yet there are often contradictions and oversights between individual studies, with little attempt to synthesize between various ranking schemes, and across related disciplines of research. With the burgeoning number of ISrelated and IS-friendly research journals, a clear need exists for a synthesis across ranking studies in order to provide a broadly consistent and converged listing of journals suitable for the interdisciplinary IS researcher’s publication requirements. This study provides this synthesis, combining in an informal meta-analysis the results of the leading journal rankings in recent years, using the degree of agreement and consistency between ranking studies for determining relative rankings of journals across a variety of fields.