sis can tell us a great deal about the relationships
between people and between entities. Search engines
such as Google exploit the linkages within a network
to determine the implicit ranking of pages. The
same analytic method, as used in this article, enables
us to reveal the importance of journals in the network of computing-related scholarship. Thus, this
research provides guidance to scholars in assessing
the importance of a particular outlet in a specific
academic publication network.
In the age of the Internet, networks are dynamic
and new technologies threaten the equilibrium of
existing relationships. For example, journal reputations tend to be long-standing, but what is the effect
of a potential reshaping of search strategies? In the days
of paper-based journals, searching was often confined
to those journals with the highest reputation. Now,
facilities such as the ACM Portal and Google Scholar
support searching across a wide range of journals.
Electronic searching, compared to manual searching,
means scholars can focus on finding highly relevant
articles in a broad domain rather than restricting
themselves to a small set of journals. As a result, we
might see changes in journal relationships as a consequence of these new tools, and more broadly, we are
likely to see changes in the nature of networks as a
result of the adoption of new technologies for linking
people and accessing information. c
REFERENCES
1. Biehl, M., Kim, H., and Wade, M. Relationships among the academic
business disciplines: A multi-method citation analysis. Omega 34, 4
(Aug. 2006), 359–371.
2. Hanneman, R.A. Introduction to Social Network Methods. University of
California, Riverside, CA, 2001.
3. Holsapple, C. W. and Luo, W. A citation analysis of influences on collaborative computing research. Computer Supported Cooperative Work
12, 3 (Sept. 2003), 351–366.
4. Knoke, D. and Burt, R.S. Prominence. In Burt, R.S. and Minor, M.J.,
Eds., Applied Network Analysis: A Methodological Introduction. SAGE
Publications, Beverly Hills, CA, 1983.
5. Nerur, S., Sikora, R., Mangalaraj, G., and Balijepally, V. Assessing the
relative influence of journals in a citation network. Commun. ACM 48,
11 (Nov. 2005), 71– 74.
6. Xu, J. and Chen, H. Criminal network analysis and visualization.
Commun. ACM 48, 6 (June 2005), 101– 107.
GRETA L. POLITES ( gpolites@uga.edu) is a doctoral student in the
MIS Department, Terry College of Business, at the University of
Georgia, Athens.
RICHARD T. WATSON ( rwatson@terry.uga.edu) is the J. Rex Fuqua
Distinguished Chair for Internet Strategy in the MIS Department,
Terry College of Business, at the University of Georgia, Athens.
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