General
The Senior Scholars' List of Premier Journals is a prestigious compilation of first-rate scientific journals recommended by leading experts in their field. This unique list provides researchers and academics with a valuable resource for accessing high-quality, trusted sources and keeping up to date with current developments in their discipline. With its focus on quality and relevance, the Senior Scholars' List of Premier Journals is a reliable guide for authors seeking prestigious publication opportunities. By regularly reviewing and updating the list, it ensures that scholars always have access to the latest findings and cutting-edge research.
The Senior Scholars explicitly regard the list as a professionally curated guide rather than a rigid ranking. Changes in the publishing landscape, the establishment of new journals, or shifts in the thematic focus of individual journals may lead to adjustments, which will be reviewed and decided upon at regular intervals. It is particularly relevant for students and doctoral candidates that the journals listed often play a central role in tenure, appointment, and evaluation procedures and are therefore considered particularly visible publication venues.
In doing so, the list expands the AIS - "Basket of Eight" and was last updated on February 17, 2023. Consequently, the list expands the Literature Research to include outstanding journals in Information Systems. While the Basket of Eight represents a very narrow selection of top journals, the Senior Scholars' List includes a larger number of premier journals that cover additional subdisciplines, methodological approaches, and thematic areas of business informatics. This provides researchers not only with a core set of particularly prestigious journals, but also with a more differentiated map of relevant publication venues in the field.
Practical Use for Research and Teaching
For students and doctoral candidates, the Senior Scholars' List primarily serves as a structured basis for planning and conducting literature searches. When searching for topics, it can be advantageous to first conduct a targeted search in databases such as Scopus or Web of Science to identify relevant articles from the journals listed. This approach enables the identification of key theoretical concepts, established methods, and current debates in the respective field of research. It is essential that theses and dissertations are closely aligned with the leading discourses in the field from the outset.
In a second phase, the list can be used to focus the selection of literature by deliberately examining which articles from premier journals are available for key questions and how these influence one's own argumentation. At the same time, additional, possibly specialized or interdisciplinary journals should be consulted in order to avoid one-sided perspectives and to adequately reflect the thematic breadth of the state of research. For lecturers, it is advisable to explicitly state in module handbooks, seminar descriptions, or guidelines for theses that a certain proportion of the literature used should come from journals on the Senior Scholars' List.
The list can also be used as a guide when planning a publication strategy. Doctoral candidates can reflect on their research project at an early stage to determine which journals are suitable in terms of content and can be realistically addressed in terms of target audience, thematic focus, and methodological requirements. In this context, it should be noted that premier journals usually have strict review processes and longer review periods. These factors must be taken into account when planning doctoral projects and third-party funded projects.
Current Status and Relationship to Other Rankings
The Senior Scholars' List is reviewed and updated at regular intervals to take appropriate account of developments in the discipline and changes in the quality and relevance of journals. The indication of an update date—such as February 17, 2023—enables users to understand the chronological classification of the list and, if necessary, to refer to more recent versions. When planning long-term research and publication projects, it is therefore advisable to check whether the current version of the list corresponds to the latest official version of the AIS.
At the same time, in addition to the Senior Scholars' List, there are other systems for evaluating scientific journals, such as national rankings (e.g., business journal rankings) or bibliometric indicators such as Impact Factor and CiteScore. Some of these pursue different objectives and evaluation logics and can lead to differing assessments of the importance of individual journals. The Senior Scholars' List should therefore be understood as a professionally curated perspective of the international information systems community and used in conjunction with other, particularly nationally relevant, evaluation standards.
Relationship to the AIS Basket of Eight
The AIS Basket of Eight represents a particularly selective subset of the journals that are authoritative in Information Systems Research and focuses on eight widely recognized top journals. In a variety of contexts—such as the evaluation of research performance or the design of doctoral projects—the Basket serves as a symbol for the highest quality segment of the discipline. The Senior Scholars' List builds on the concept of the “Scholar's List,” but expands it to include additional premier journals that represent additional subject areas and methodological approaches.
Students and doctoral candidates are advised to use these two resources in combination. While the Basket of Eight offers a very compact introduction to the leading journals and is well suited as a starting point for an initial, highly focused literature search, the Senior Scholars' List allows for a broader exploration of relevant publications. An internal link to the “AIS – Basket of Eight” page can highlight the connection between the two on the website and make it easier to navigate between the two sources of information.
Application in Teaching and Qualification Work
In academic teaching, the Senior Scholars' List can serve as a basis for developing various didactic formats. In seminars or project work, for example, students have the opportunity to analyze the thematic focus of individual premier journals, identify typical research questions and methods, and compare these with the requirements of their own studies or theses. One possible task is to assign their own research topic to one or more journals on the list and justify why these appear to be particularly suitable places for publication.
For qualification papers, guidelines can stipulate that key theoretical and empirical contributions – where available – should preferably be drawn from journals on the Senior Scholars' List. This promotes high academic quality in the papers and sensitizes students at an early stage to the relevance of renowned publications. It should also be made clear that the list is not to be understood as an exclusion criterion, but rather as a guide that should be supplemented by relevant literature from other, especially interdisciplinary and context-related journals.