- » Focus and Scope
- » Section Policies
- » Peer Review Process
- » Publication Frequency
- » Open Access Policy
Focus and Scope
Information Research is a freely-available, open access journal dedicated to the publication of high-quality research papers in a wide range of information-related disciplines, including information science, information management, information systems, and librarianship. The dominant focus of the journal is upon information-content-related issues, rather than purely technological issues and a concern with human interaction with systems is also central.
Readership of the journal is split almost equally between academic researchers, information practitioners and students and care is taken to ensure that papers published in the journal are intelligible to this diverse audience.
Information Research is also one of the main book reviewing outlets in the field and can deliver reviews very quickly after publication.
Information Research is indexed by the leading indexing and abstracting services, including ISI's Web of Knowledge, for listing in: Social Science Citation Index, Current Contents/Social and Behavioral Sciences, ISI Alerting Services, Social Scisearch and the Journal Citation Reports/Social Sciences Edition. It is also indexed by Google Scholar, INSPEC: Engineering Village, Library, Information Science & Technology Abstracts and LISA: Library and Information Science Abstracts.
Information Research currently ranks sixth out of sixteen comparable journals in the field, according to ISI's Journal Impact Factor.
Section Policies
Peer-reviewed papers
 Open Submissions |
Indexed |
Peer Reviewed |
Working papers
|
Open Submissions |
Indexed |
 Peer Reviewed |
Book and software reviews
|
Open Submissions |
Indexed |
Peer Reviewed |
Peer Review Process
Submissions are first reviewed by the Editor who receives the paper and, if it is considered to be within the scope of the journal, it is then passed to one or other of the Associate Editors who handle submissions from different parts of the world. The Associate Editor will select two referees, known for their expertise in the area of the submitted paper. Members of the Editorial Board also act as referees, where appropriate. Refereed papers, in other words, will be subject to the full rigour of peer review as it is exercised by scholarly printed journals. The majority of papers submitted usually require revision before publication and, overall, the acceptance rate of the journal is approximately 35% of submitted papers.
The difference between the peer-review process for Information Research and that of printed journals is one of speed of review—although the main determinant of this is the speed with which referees respond. If a paper is received shortly after an issue has been published, we normally expect to publish the paper in the next-but-one issue - in other words, no longer than six months after submission. The journal is not restricted by needing to limit its output in any way: an issue may contain only three papers, or it may include fifteen or twenty - 'page limitations' do not affect an electronic journal.
Prospective authors in the United Kingdom should note that in its regular review of research performance in the United Kingdom, the Higher Education Funding Council has stated that digital publications may be submitted for assessment and should be subject to the same quality criteria as papers published by traditional means.
Publication Frequency
Information Research is published four times a year: in order to make the journal year co-terminus with the calendar year, the journal will be published in January, April, September and December and from 2008 onwards it will be published in March, June, September, and December.
Open Access Policy
This journal provides immediate open access to its content on the principle that making research freely available to the public supports a greater global exchange of knowledge.