Introduction
My research seeks to improve the World Wide Web (Web) by exploring methods to improve the quality and usability of web based information and how individuals use that information. I am currently working on a research project that examines the impact of the “Snob effect” on discontinuance of digital products. A second project examines electronic word of mouth (eWoM) by comparing eWoM posted in social media sites (Facebook) with that for a review site (Yelp). Specifically it compares the impact of implicit eWoM (like a check in) with explicit eWoM (a rating or review) on future eWoM activity. I am also continuing my research into "Web 2.0" applications, examining the requirements for a medical tourism e-portal that can reduce information asymmetry. This project involves collaboration with doctors from the Anschutz medical campus who are working in the medical tourism industry. An important part of this research projects is the development and validation of prototype systems that can be used to demonstrate the benefits the system can provide individuals interested in medical tourism.
Research Contributions
The majority of my research papers can be grouped into two overlapping research areas: electronic marketplaces and decision support systems. Both of these research areas utilize software agents, web applications, and web information in one way or another. I have published 32 refereed journal articles in these areas, 19 of those articles since receiving tenure in 2008. The table R1 on the next pages summarizes my contribution on each of these papers.
Electronic Marketplaces This
research stream has examined a variety of themes related to the
success of online marketplaces. One of the most successful types
of Internet marketplaces has been the online auction.
My research in electronic marketplaces examines the
impact of online image (e-image) type on online auction success,
the use of online reputation systems for documenting and
predicting online auction fraud, the characteristics of shill
reviews, the criteria auction sellers’ use when selecting an
online auction site and the impact of Web agents operating in
online B2C and C2C auctions.
This area of research has resulted in the publication of
fourteen journal papers, ten papers since receiving tenure.
These papers have appeared in a wide variety of journals
including Information Systems Frontiers
(2015),
Electronic
Commerce Research and Applications (2014),
the
International Journal of
Human-Computer Interaction (2014), Electronic Commerce
Research (2010), the Journal of Theoretical and Applied
Electronic Commerce Research
(2009/2010), the
Journal of Computer Information Systems (2009) and
MIS Quarterly (2008).
This research
stream has also resulted three articles under review at
Small Business Economics,
the Journal of Organizational Computing and Electronic
Commerce and Computers & Education.
Decision Support Systems
This research stream
examines the design and use of Decision Support Systems across a
variety of application domains.
These areas include research into the use of geospatial
decision support systems, the development of a collective
intelligence application for special education, a mashup
application to support retail consumer decision making and the
impact of dynamic interaction on decision support system
effectiveness. This
research stream is strongly design science oriented, with an
emphasis on building real software systems and using them to
evaluate benefits, human computer interaction, and research
concepts. Many of the research projects
leverage Web 2.0 technologies to
create specialized applications.
This research stream has resulted in twelve journal
papers, nine papers since receiving tenure. These papers
have appeared in a wide variety of journals including the
Journal of Computer
Information Systems (in Press), the
International Journal of Human-Computer Interaction (In Press),
IEEE Transactions on
Systems, Man and Cybernetics (2013),
Decision
Support Systems (2010, 2009), and
Communications of the ACM
(2010). It also
resulted in an early paper on Design Science Research published
in Information Systems
Frontiers (2001) and two papers currently under review at
Information Technology & People and
Information Systems
Frontiers.
Research Quality
There are a number of measures of research
quality. A summary
of several of these quality measures with respect to my research
can be found in the table below.
Table R2: Research Quality Summary
|
Number of Refereed Publications |
62 |
|
Number of Journal Publications |
32 |
|
Number of “A” Journal Publications |
20 |
|
Citations |
962 |
|
h index |
17 |
|
i10-index |
22 |
The h index is a widely accepted
measure of the importance, significance, and broad impact of a
scientist's cumulative research contributions. It is defined as
the number of papers with citation numbers >
h.
The i10-index is simply the number of papers with more
than 10 citations.
My research can be also be evaluated by
assessing the quality of the research outlets I have published
in. Numerous surveys have attempted to evaluate the quality of
publication outlets for information systems researchers.
They include surveys that evaluate the IS discipline as a
whole as well as surveys that evaluate research outlets for
specific topic areas. IS World net maintains a table that
includes nine research surveys which rank IS journals based on
their contribution to the discipline as a whole (see table R3
which summarizes these rankings).
In these surveys, MIS Quarterly is consistently ranked as the top journal in the
field. It is on the Information Systems Senior Scholars' List of
Premier Information Systems Journals.[i]
Communications of the ACM is consistently ranked
as one of the top 5 journals in the field with four of the nine
surveys ranking it as the number 2 journal in the field.
Decision Support Systems was ranked from 5th
to 13th most important research outlet for the MIS
discipline as a whole.
One of the more recent surveys found Communications of
the ACM to be the most valuable general (non-IS) outlet for
IS research. It also
found MIS Quarterly to be the most valuable information systems specific
research outlet, with Decision Support Systems the 7th,
International Journal of
Electronic Commerce the 12th, and Journal of
Computer Information Systems the 26th most
valuable information systems specific research outlet.[ii]
The average IS discipline ranking across all nine studies
are included in table R1 for each of my papers.
Three other studies evaluated journals with
respect to their contributions in a specific IS domain. The
first found that Decision Support Systems is the primary
publication outlet for researchers in the disciplines of either
artificial intelligence or decision support systems.[iii]
This was supported by another study, which found
Decision Support Systems
to be ranked second for decision science researchers.[iv] Two
studies evaluated the top journals for e-Commerce research and
both ranked the
International Journal of Electronic Commerce as being the
best e-Commerce research outlet for IS researchers.4,
[v]
Electronic Commerce Research has ranked as the second best
and the Journal of Electronic Commerce Research has
ranked as the fourth best e-Commerce research outlet for IS
researchers.4 The
International Journal of Human-Computer Interaction
is ranked as the fifth best outlet for research related to Human
Computer Interaction (HCI) research.4 This
same study ranked
Communications of the ACM as the top computer science outlet
and IEEE Transactions as the second best computer science outlet for
information systems research.4
These subdiscipline
ranking are included in table R1 for each of my papers.
The Australian Business Deans Council established an ABDC
Journal Quality List to overcome the regional and discipline
bias of international lists.
The ABDC Journal Quality List 2013 comprises 2,767
different journal titles, divided into four categories of
quality, A*: 6.9%; A: 20.8%; B: 28.4%; and C: 43.9% journals.[vi]
Unlike the Information Systems Journal rankings, the ABDC
list includes relative rankings across all business disciplines.
This cross-disciplinary journal quality list suggests that five
of my papers appear in journals that can be classified as
premier (A*) journals, one in MIS Quarterly and four in
Decision Support Systems and fourteen of my other papers
appear in A journals. These cross-disciplinary qualities
are included in table R1 for each of my papers.
Seven of my papers appear in journals that are either unranked
or classified as C level journals by the ADBC study. One of
these unclassified journals is the Journal of Universal
Computer Science, which, as a largely computer science
journal, was outside the scope of a business journal ranking.
Its ISI impact factor suggests it would likely have a
classification as a B journal. The ADBC list ranks
Electronic Commerce
Research and Applications as a C journal, despite the fact
it has an ISI impact factor and IS journal ranking similar to
that of other A journals on their list (e.g. Information and
Software Technology).
Of the remaining five papers, three were early research
papers written by Ph.D. students.
I encourage my Ph.D. students to submit their early work
to journals to get practice with the journal review process,
even if the study is just a pilot study or literature review.
Future Research
I plan on continuing my research into decision support
systems, specifically involving collective intelligence and
other Web 2.0 technologies.
I am also continuing my research on electronic
marketplaces examining factors influencing marketplace dynamics.
My goal is to average two to three publications per year with at
least half of these publications appearing in a top research
outlets like: MIS Quarterly, Information Systems
Research, the
Journal of the AIS, the Journal of Management Information
Systems, the International Journal of Electronic Commerce
or IEEE Transactions.
last updated December 2016