ISWORLDnet SUMMARY

[Original Posting]
Six months passes and another round of updates and improvements has
been made to the Index[1].

A. The Index is now an electronic book with an ISBN, published by
   Deakin University.

B. At present the Index contains information on 455 journals, of
   which 415 are still active. Unlike Nicholas Romano's site[2]
   the Index is focused solely on journals and does not cover
   conference proceedings etc.

C. The Index is consistently attracting about 7,000 hits per month.

D. Search terms input by users are now being tracked, and this has
   resulted in a redesign of the search page and better feedback
   and advice to users presented as part of the search results.

E. Exits to journal pages from the Index are now tracked, and this
   is being used to generate a "popularity" ranking. As stated on
   that page, this ranking scheme has limitations[3], but is
   interesting nevertheless. There are less than 1,000 records from
   the week or so that the tracking has been in operation. The
   rankings should be more useful as the number of exits recorded increase.

F. An Institutional Holdings area is being developed. Accessing
   the journals through this area provides you with a link into
   that institution's OPAC. I am hoping to provide a simple
   mechanism for nominated persons at the respective institution to
   update this themselves. It should be regarded as beta only at present.
   This makes journal contents only a couple of clicks away from the
   Index. Going through the institution OPAC helps ensure that
   subscription mechanisms will be enforced by your institution and
   the relevant journal site or subscription database. Eventually,
   I hope that this area can be accessed in the other direction, so
   that for a particular journal, an idea of institutional holdings
   can be displayed.

G. The Index of Information Systems Journals has a Google Index of 1!
   Type "Index of Information Systems Journals" or "John Lamp" into
   Google and click "I'm Feeling Lucky"!

1. http://lamp.infosys.deakin.edu.au/journals/
2. http://www.osu-tulsa.okstate.edu/nromano/wwwroot/iswjsp/
3. eg Is it coincidence that the No 2 and 3 journals on the ranking are
   the first two journals in the Index by alphabetical order? MISQ ranks
   quite low, but maybe that's because people know its web location and
   may have it bookmarked and therefore don't need to consult the Index
    to find it.

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