Meet the Editors
Publishing in a scholarly journal often seems complicated and challenging, particularly for the new researchers and academics, who are expected to produce high quality papers from the outset of their careers. The aim of this panel is to help researchers not only choosing the right journal for publishing their research, but also to help them understand the processes from submission to final acceptance that papers undergo at the different journals. Editors will give insights into their quality criteria and, more generally, what they are looking for in a paper to be published. Steve Sawyer (JASIST), Jim Jansen (Information Processing & Management), June Abbas (Library & Information Science Research), and Andrew Dillon (Information and Culture) will share information on each of their journals and provide insight into how best to succeed in publishing with them.
Presenters
Dr. Steven B. Sawyer is the Editor-in-Chief of the Journal of the Association of Science and Information Technology (JASIST). His research builds on and advances the social informatics tradition through particular attention to the ways in which people organize to work together and use information and communication technologies. The courses he leads focus student’s attention to the design, development, and implementation of information systems and to the roles of information and communication technologies relative to organizational and social change. He received his D.B.A. and master's degree in Management Information Systems from Boston University, and a master's in Ocean Engineering from the University of Rhode Island. His research advances social informatics (and, more broadly, socio-technical principles for studying information and communication technologies) by focusing on social practices, collective action, theroles and functions of the technologies and systems of information sharing, and the institutional contexts in which these happen. Current research projects include: Distributed scientific collaborations, scientific data repositories, project-based (gig or freelancing) work and the technological skills (e.g., infrastructural competency and working on platforms) this requires, and new ways of organizing work.
Dr. Jim Jansen is the Editor-in-Chief of the journal, Information Processing and Management, a leading IT academic journal and former editor-in-chief of the journal, Internet Research. He employs digital analytics to understand and measure the affordances of the Web for searching, web traffic, and ecommerce. Jim has 300 or so authored research publications. He is co-author of the book, Data-Driven Personas, co-author of Web Search: Public Searching of the Web, co-editor of the Handbook of Research on Weblog Analysis, author of Understanding User - Web Interactions Via Web Analytics, and author of Understanding Sponsored Search: A Coverage of the Core Elements of Keyword Advertising. Jim is a principal scientist at the Qatar Computing Research Institute (QCRI) and an adjunct professor with the College of Information Sciences and Technology at Pennsylvania State University. At QCRI, he is actively conducting research in various areas of web analytics. At Penn State, he is actively involved in teaching undergraduate (IT project management, keyword advertising) and graduate courses (searching, retrieval, analytics). In the PPC area, Jim has participated in the 2008 through 2015 Google Online Marketing Challenges, with student teams in the Final 15 for all years. A former member of the US Army, he is a graduate of West Point and has a Ph.D. in computer science from Texas A&M University, along with master degrees from Texas A&M (computer science) and Troy State (international relations). He has received several awards, including an ACM Research Award, six application development awards, and other writing, publishing, research, and leadership honors. He has successfully conducted numerous consulting projects and expert witnessing cases (patent litigation, civil cases, and class action suits in the areas of searching, retrieval, analytics, and keyword advertising) as a subject matter expert for Jansen Expert Witnessing, LLC.
June M. Abbas, Ph.D., is the Editor-in Chief of the journal, Library & Information Science Research. She is a Professor in the School of Library and Information Studies (SLIS) at the University of Oklahoma. Her transdisciplinary research focuses on the complex process of user-centered design of systems, which combines an understanding of users’ information behaviors and interactions with systems (e.g., computers, social media, and other humans), with principles of knowledge and information organization and representation, to design the systems based on users, their information organization needs and work tasks, and how they engage with systems of all forms. Dr. Abbas’ research also focuses on youth and the socio-cognitive factors associated with use of information technology. Her research spans boundaries and has brought new understanding to our field about various communities, for example, children and information technology (social media and privacy and security issues; competencies of information professionals working with youth in Makerspaces), classics scholars and high school teachers of Latin, biologists, genealogists, etc. Her current grant is investigating screen media guidance practices of parents of children ages 5-11, and the role that community practitioners and librarians play as media mentors. Her research projects have developed new and innovative knowledge in the fields of library and information science, computer science, and digital humanities.
Dr. Andrew Dillon is the joint editor in chief of Information & Culture, and a current or former editorial board member of the Journal of Documentation, JASIST, Interacting with Computers and the International Journal of Human-Computer Studies. As an interdisciplinary scholar, he has held appointments in departments or schools of cognitive science, computer science, psychology, instructional systems technology, management information systems, library and information science, and informatics. His research focuses on the human response to information infrastructures and the development of truly human-centered design methods. As well as advancing the coverage of Information & Culture to embrace work that extends our understanding of information more broadly in our world, he is currently authoring a new book on user-centeredness to be published for Routledge. After graduating from University College, Cork (M.A. 1st class) and Loughborough University of Technology (Ph.D.) he served as a Research Fellow of the Human Sciences & Advanced Technology Research Institute in the UK. He then moved to Indiana University in where, amongst other duties, he developed and served as the founding Director of the Masters in Human-Computer Interaction at the School of Informatics. He joined the University of Texas at Austin as Dean and Professor of the School of Information and stepped down after 15 years to resume his research and teaching career in 2017. In 2017-18 he held the Follett Chair at Dominican University.