Refereed Journals

What does "refereed" mean?

Many students in CIS 350 have never been asked to do research requiring the use of refereed journals. The term "refereed" means that a given article has been subjected to scrutiny and review by experts in the field (i.e. the referees). The referees evaluate the article based on the rigor of its methodology, its findings, logical consistency, and contribution to the field. If the referees deem the article worthy, it gets published in a refereed journal. Because they have been the subject of such criticism refereed articles are considered more trustworthy and concrete sources of information than are non-refereed articles. Academic writing requires reliance on refereed articles as the source for the bulk of its information. That is why we insist that you use only refereed articles for your CIS 350 term paper and article reviews.

Popular media forms such as magazines, newspapers, and talk shows, are NOT sources of refereed information. CNN, Byte Magazine, the New York Times, and such may give you good ideas about what topics are of interest, but they will not provide you with substantive information that can form the basis of your paper. To help you along, the links below are to refereed journals that focus on many of the issues we will discuss throughout the semester. You can feel safe using any of the articles you find from these sources:

• The ACM Digital Library
  The Association for Computing Machinery (ACM) is one of the oldest professional organizations for computing professionals and academics. Bibliographic information, abstracts, reviews, and the full-text for articles published in ACM periodicals and proceedings since its founding in 1947 are available in the library together with selected works published by affiliated organizations. To access their digital library you must either log in from a computer on the NJIT campus or use a VPN.
  
  
• IEEE Explore
  The IEEE is a non-profit, technical professional association of more than 350,000 individual members in 150 countries. Through its members, the IEEE is a leading authority in technical areas ranging from computer engineering, biomedical technology and telecommunications, to electric power, aerospace and consumer electronics, among others. IEEE Xplore provides full-text access to IEEE transactions, journals, magazines and conference proceedings published since 1988 and all current IEEE Standards. To access their digital library you must either log in from a computer on the NJIT campus or use a VPN.
  
  
• Information Systems Research (ISR)
  Information Systems Research is a leading international journal of theory, research, and intellectual development, focused on information systems in organizations, institutions, the economy, and society. To access ISR articles online you must either log in from a computer on the NJIT campus or use a VPN.
  
  
• The Information Society
  The Information Society is an international, refereed journal that publishes scholarly articles, position papers, short communications, and book reviews. This journal serves as a forum for thoughtful commentary about impacts, policies, systems concepts, and methodologies related to the rapidly emerging information society. Topics covered include: the rise of virtual communities through worldwide many-to- many communication; cross-border data flows; fears of cultural imperialism and inundation; (inter)national information infrastructures; and implications of options for electronic democracy. To access Information Society articles online you must either log in from a computer on the NJIT campus or use a VPN.
  
  
• The Journal of Computer Mediated Communication
  The JCMC is an online journal hosted by the Annenberg School of Communication at the University of Southern California. Much of the latest and best research related to online communication is published here. This journal is freely available to any who visit the site.
  
  
• Other Full Text Databases Available from the NJIT Library
  This is a link to a number of other full text databases that the NJIT library subscribes to. Not all of these databases contain refereed journals, but many of them do so please use them to find more information.