Method

Editors often reflect on their journals’ histories to develop insights into their development and evolution. For example, the evolution of AIS academic research in the Journal of Information Systems and International Journal of Accounting Information Systems has been widely examined, classified, and analyzed (for example, see Guan et al., 2018; Hutchison et al., 2004; Hutchison et al., 2018; Moffitt et al., 2016; Samuels & Steinbart, 2002). Fordham’s (2012) review of the first seven years of AISEJ similarly examined, classified, and analyzed AIS education research. Matters discussed in that article include:

1. The early history of AISEJ, including its inception at the AIS Educator Association annual meeting in 2003

2. The use of double-blind reviews to help increase the quality of articles published

3. A proposed affiliation of the journal with the American Accounting Association’s Information Systems section, which ultimately did not occur

4. An analysis of the 31 articles written by 60 authors and published in the first seven volumes (2006-2012), including identification of those authors who have published multiple articles and a high-level summary discussion of articles by topic area

5. Appendices containing the journal’s mission, lists of articles published, author affiliations, and names of members of the then-current editorial board

We extend Fordham’s (2012) review by categorizing and analyzing in greater detail the 31 articles published in the first seven volumes (which extend through the first three editorships of AISEJ), along with the 29 articles published in the subsequent seven volumes (which extend through three more editorships). First, we classify each article based on AISEJ’s four categories of AIS education submissions in the Call for Papers for Volume 14 and Appendix A of Fordham (2012). A Curriculum and Pedagogy category had appeared as an example in previous calls for papers and was added for Volume 14. The AISEJ Volume 14 Call for Papers, which shows the current categories, appears in the Appendix. We believe it is important to classify AISEJ articles using the journal’s own categories to capture the journal’s history of publications.

We also classify articles using topics appearing in the Volunteer to Review form used by AISEJ through Volume 14 (AISEJ, 2020). Prospective reviewers identify areas of interest from a list of 27 topics (a more extensive list than the examples in the Call for Papers) to help journal editors match submissions to reviewers’ interests and specializations. Thus, we classify articles by the journal’s own topic areas to draw insights from the journal’s history of publications. The journal has added topics to update coverage of newer technologies. We also include topics from Fordham (2012). Thus, we used 28 topics to classify the published articles.

Classification and Analysis

Our first analysis examines how many papers the journal published in each general category during the 14 years of our review. Figure 1 shows the results of our classification.

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Twenty-one (35.0%) articles are classified as Research (basic or interdisciplinary studies that have an impact on AIS education), 19 (31.7%) as Curriculum and Pedagogy (how AIS educators might design their courses and programs to be more effective), 28 (46.7%) as Teaching Applications (cases, projects or other instructional resources), and 15 (25%) as Tools (tutorials, demonstrations or reviews of useful new applications, software or teaching tools). Some articles appear in multiple categories, causing the sum of the four categories (83) to exceed the number of articles (60).

The papers published during the period covered by Figure 1 include four that represent, in our opinion, “best practices” that future authors could use as exemplars for each respective category:

1. Research: A Look Back at the First Seven Years of the AIS Educator Journal (Fordham 2012)

2. Curriculum and Pedagogy: Topics for the Accounting Information Systems Course: A Dual Perspective Approach from Educators and Employers (Garnsey et al. 2019)

3. Teaching Applications: The Lemonade Stand: An Elementary Case for Introducing Data Analytics (Schafer et al. 2018)

4. Tools: Bluth Company: An Adobe Acrobat Case Motivated by Practitioner Feedback (Hayes et al. 2021)

Figure 2 shows the number of articles published by topic; the 60 articles published cover 139 topics; thus, many articles address multiple topics, averaging 2.3 per article.

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For example, a single article might discuss the topics of Business Processes and Controls/Cycles, Documentation Techniques, and Databases. We conclude that educators seeking materials that deal with multiple aspects of AIS will find many examples in AISEJ. Figure 2 also shows no articles published in five topic areas: Cloud Computing, Data Analytics – Big Data, Emerging Technologies, Service Computing, and Social Media Technology. We suggest AIS educators consider addressing these topics in future submissions to AISEJ.

Figure 2 shows that two topics appear more frequently than others, AIS Business Process and Controls/Cycles and Control and Auditing Systems, in 25 and 17 articles, respectively. Four topic areas appear in eight articles: Databases, Documentation Techniques, Excel or Other Spreadsheets, and General AIS Framework. Along with the five topics with no coverage, other topics less likely to be covered include the Data Analytics Process, Artificial Intelligence/Knowledge Management, and Data Analytics – Visualization Software. AIS educators might also consider addressing these topics in future submissions to AISEJ since the journal identifies these in its Volunteer to Review form.

In addition to this analysis of topics, we also search for patterns in how topics trended over time. Doing so extends Fordham’s (2012) retrospective on the first seven volumes of AISEJ. Figure 3 shows the frequency of topics by year across the journal’s history, with editor/co-editor terms noted.

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Figure 3 uses the order of topics in the 2019 Volunteer to Review Form. We retained topics of General AIS Framework and Systems Understanding Aid/Manual Practice Set from Fordham (2012) because many published articles include these topics. We deleted the Curriculum and Pedagogy topic since it is now a primary category in the call for papers. We omitted the five topics from Figure 2, for which no papers were published. We identify the editors of journal issues in Table 3 by numbers, as follows: 1, Arline Savage; 2, Stacy Kovar; 3, David Fordham; 4, Bill Heninger 5, Ronny Daigle and David Hayes; 6, Chelley Vician.

Figure 4 tabulates authors’ institutional affiliations over time (following Fordham, 2012). We count publications with multiple authors from one affiliation as one publication for that affiliation. We count publications with multiple authors having different affiliations as one publication for each affiliation.

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Panel A shows institutions affiliated with authors who have published more than one paper in AISEJ, which might identify institutions that value AISEJ and the type of work it publishes more highly than others. James Madison University ranks first with seven publications (with a consistency of publishing from 2008-2015), followed by the University of North Carolina at Wilmington with four (with one in each of the last two volumes shown) and Seattle University, Siena College (also with one in each of the last two volumes shown), University of Delaware and the University of St. Thomas (with one in each of the last three volumes shown) each with three publications. We list seven other universities with two publications each. Panel B shows institutions associated with only one publication.

We also examined publications by author by year. Figure 5 shows authors with two or more publications.

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A comparison of this figure to Figure 4, Panel A shows concentrations of authors often account for most or all publications at their affiliation. Two authors, David Hayes and David Fordham, account for all seven publications at James Madison University. Sarah Bee, Margaret Garnsey, Chelley Vician, and Skip White each account for all three publications at their respective affiliations.

We show trends in the number of authors per publication per year in Figure 6.

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The weighted average number of authors ranges from 1.5 (2007, Volume 2) to 3.5 (2008, Volume 3). Only two articles appear in Volume 3, one of which has five authors. Approximately 91 percent of articles have three authors or less.

Our analyses provide a summary of topics included in the first 14 volumes of AISEJ. We also present and summarize information about affiliations, authors, and the number of authors of articles. We next discuss recent research for insights about which topics accounting practitioners believe we should teach and compare them to topics of papers published in the AISEJ.

Technologies and Skills: Recent Research Findings

As stated earlier, AIS is continually changing, driven by business and technological advances. Thus, AIS educators should reflect on which topics they should teach, how they should teach them, and what materials will best help facilitate student learning. In this section, we reflect on recent research that suggests which topics should be taught and compare those findings to topics published in AISEJ.

Lee et al. (2018) surveyed accounting professionals, asking how frequently they use a particular software/tool as part of their current job (or most recent accounting-related position) and found that many of the technology tools (Excel, Accounting Software, ERP Software, Audit Software (CAATS), Access) respondents identified as frequently used do appear in AISEJ. The respondents also report a low usage of Tableau. We believe this might be due to the relatively newness of the software tool when the survey was conducted. An increase in data analytics skills might increase Tableau’s rating in future surveys. Garnsey et al. (2019) asked CPA firms to rate the importance of typical AIS course skills. We created Figure 7 using selected data from Garnsey et al. Table 3 (2019 p. 42) to identify skills that have been the topics of articles already published or likely to be published (COSO and Computer Fraud and Abuse) in AISEJ.

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Spreadsheet of AISEJ Articles by Topic

To help AIS educators find articles published in AISEJ on specific topics, we have created a spreadsheet (available from the authors) containing relevant data about those articles. The filtering/selection mechanism appears in Figure 8, which demonstrates how clicking the dropdown button and selecting “1” will select articles about “Excel or Other Spreadsheets” (that topic is coded as “1” in the spreadsheet).

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Figure 9 shows the results from performing that filtering/selection operation.

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Eight articles, all with a “1” in column AB (titled “Excel or Other Spreadsheets”), were published on the topic. Information about these articles appears in columns B, C, D, and E.

Conclusions

The AIS educator community is fortunate to have a journal dedicated solely to AIS education. Since 2006, AISEJ has provided synergy between AIS teaching and publishing for authors and has been a resource for educators to use in their AIS courses. This paper offers insights into AISEJ’s history, development, and potential future directions. We believe such an analysis benefits the AIS educator community and the journal.

We analyzed the 60 articles published in the first 14 volumes (2006-2019) of AISEJ. Results show that certain categories of articles (Research and Teaching Applications) and topics of articles (AIS Business Process and Controls/Cycles (Revenue, Expenditure, G/L, etc.) and Control and Auditing Systems) are frequently covered in the journal. Results also show that many topics are addressed in few, if any, articles. We also compare recent studies surveying accounting professionals about what topics should be taught in AIS to topics covered in articles published in AISEJ. This comparison shows that AISEJ is providing a publishing outlet for topics of interest to accounting professionals while also noting some topics identified by accounting professionals that have not been addressed in AISEJ. As a resource to AIS educators, we provide a searchable spreadsheet of articles by topic published in the first 14 volumes of AISEJ. We believe our analysis and searchable spreadsheet can help AIS educators teach better and develop useful contributions to AISEJ.