Theme Issue of the Journal of Information Systems
New and Innovative Sources of Research Data

The Journal of Information Systems (JIS) is the journal of the Accounting Information Systems (AIS) Section of the American Accounting Association (www.jisonline.com). JIS will publish a theme issue of JIS entitled “Sources of Data.”

Accounting researchers have recently gained access to inexpensive and plentiful research data and participants through new outlets, including online labor markets and for-profit data aggregators. Services such as Amazon’s Mechanical Turk allow for rapid collection of data, and there has been significant growth in the use of participants from online markets in accounting research. Researchers are also using massive datasets from sources such as corporate transaction archives, Google Search Analytics, weather records, social media and other external data. These big data sources require data management and analytical techniques not often employed in accounting research. This theme issue seeks papers that examine opportunities and risks created by the use of these new and emerging sources of data.

Examples of relevant topics include:

• Online labor markets:
• Evaluation of emerging sources of research participants (i.e., new sources other than Amazon’s Mechanical Turk, Qualtrics, and Survey Monkey Audience) and sources of participants that are new to the accounting discipline
• Discussion of the risks of fast access to inexpensive participants
• Discussion of opportunities associated with fast access to inexpensive participants (for example, enhanced capacity to conduct longitudinal, cross-cultural and multi-method studies)
• Evaluation of methods to improve research designs that use online workers (for example, to deal with new threats such as repeated exposure to established psychological measures and common research paradigms)
• Examination of the population of online workers (e.g., is the population large enough to accommodate the growth of the use of these workers?)
• Examination of the differences between online work environments and traditional laboratory environments or traditional distributions of surveys and the potential influences of such differences on research findings
• Replication of seminal and recent experiments where there is reason to believe that paid online participants may yield different results or new insights
• Examination of reviewer and editor perceptions of data obtained through online labor markets and other data sources
• Evaluation of the effects of incentives and incentive amounts on the behavior of participants in online experiments
• Identification and comparison of sources of data for specific research streams, such as corporate social reporting (CSR), data analytics, judgment and decision making, etc.
• Discussion of online sources for qualitative research including Delphi studies and focus groups
• Review of research conducted in other disciplines employing a particular innovative data source
• Evaluation of new databases and datasets that may be applicable to research in accounting and auditing
• Methods for data management and analysis of large and complex data sets
• Ethical questions and academic publication issues that arise in dealing with these new data sources 

All research methods are welcome, including experimental, survey, case study, archival and literature review. The editors also welcome the submission of short papers that are appropriate for publication as a Research Note. In addition to research papers, the editors would be interested in publishing commentaries and calls for action on the issues raised in the theme issue. Please contact the theme issue editors for further information. Submissions should follow the JIS editorial guidelines at www.jisonline.com. Submissions for the special issue are due on December 15, 2016. Earlier submission is encouraged. The co-editors of the theme issue are Jake Rose, Professor of Accounting, Victoria University of Wellington, Email: jake.rose@vuw.ac.nz and Ania Rose, Associate Professor, Victoria University of Wellington, Email: ania.rose@vuw.ac.nz.