IGI Global (formerly Idea Group Inc.) is a U.S.-based international

academic publishing Academic publishing is the subfield of publishing which distributes Research, academic research and scholarship. Most academic work is published in academic journal articles, books or Thesis, theses. The part of academic written output that is n ...

company headquartered in

Hershey, Pennsylvania Hershey is an Unincorporated area, unincorporated community and census-designated place (CDP) in Derry Township, Dauphin County, Pennsylvania, United States. It is home to the Hershey Company, which was founded by candy magnate Milton S. Hershey ...

that publishes books and

academic journal An academic journal (or scholarly journal or scientific journal) is a periodical publication in which Scholarly method, scholarship relating to a particular academic discipline is published. They serve as permanent and transparent forums for the ...

s across a variety of subject areas. In 2019, IGI Global was assessed in a

Springer Nature Springer Nature or the Springer Nature Group is a German-British academic publishing company created by the May 2015 merger of Springer Science+Business Media and Holtzbrinck Publishing Group's Nature Publishing Group, Palgrave Macmillan, and Macm ...

white paper as the 7th largest scientific, medical, and technical (STM) publisher. The company has been accused of engaging in predatory publishing and criticized for its handling of plagiarism. IGI Global is listed as a member of the

Committee on Publication Ethics The Committee on Publication Ethics (COPE) is a nonprofit organization whose stated mission is to define best practice in the ethics of scholarly publishing and to assist editors and publishers to achieve this. Mission COPE educates and sup ...

(COPE). It is also listed as a SHERPA/RoMEO blue publisher and employs a hybrid model of

Open Access Open access (OA) is a set of principles and a range of practices through which nominally copyrightable publications are delivered to readers free of access charges or other barriers. With open access strictly defined (according to the 2001 de ...

for its journals. IGI Global uses a double-blind

peer review Peer review is the evaluation of work by one or more people with similar competencies as the producers of the work (:wiktionary:peer#Etymology 2, peers). It functions as a form of self-regulation by qualified members of a profession within the ...

process for its books and journals.

History

IGI Global (originally Idea Group Inc.) was founded in 1988 by a former professor at the

Pennsylvania State University The Pennsylvania State University (Penn State or PSU) is a Public university, public Commonwealth System of Higher Education, state-related Land-grant university, land-grant research university with campuses and facilities throughout Pennsyl ...

(USA). The organization started as a publisher of research content in the field of information science and technology as it is applied to multiple disciplines, such as education, library science, healthcare, public administration, and computer science. In 2002, IGI Global began offering content in electronic formats. In 2007 and 2008, two

blog A blog (a Clipping (morphology), truncation of "weblog") is an informational website consisting of discrete, often informal diary-style text entries also known as posts. Posts are typically displayed in Reverse chronology, reverse chronologic ...

posts by Debora Weber-Wulff and

Ian Bogost Ian Bogost is an American academic and video game designer, most known for the game '' Cow Clicker''. He holds a joint professorship at Washington University as director and professor of the Film and Media Studies program in Arts & Sciences a ...

noted that IGI Global may engage in " write-only publishing" of its books, as recorded in a later journal article. Until 2009, IGI Global publications were manually typeset. After this date, it built an in-house workflow management system to produce its publications. As of 2012, IGI Global sponsored conferences such as the Charleston Conference. In 2018, over 150 IGI Global publications were indexed by

Scopus Scopus is a scientific abstract and citation database, launched by the academic publisher Elsevier as a competitor to older Web of Science in 2004. The ensuing competition between the two databases has been characterized as "intense" and is c ...

. In 2019, IGI Global was assessed in a

white paper as the 7th largest scientific, medical, and technical (STM) publisher in a top ten list of publishers, with a total of 116 books, 2,286 chapters, 2,339 citations, and an average of 20 citations per book. In 2021, Nick Newcomer, writing for ''Research Ethics'', claimed that IGI Global's small-run monographs are aimed at promoting

Diversity, Equity, and Inclusion In the United States, diversity, equity, and inclusion (DEI) are organizational frameworks that seek to promote the fair treatment and full participation of all people, particularly groups who have historically been underrepresented or subject ...

(DEI) for its authors, which resulted in what he called "malicious mislabeling". The same year, an editorial piece in a competing journal criticized IGI Global's handling of

plagiarism Plagiarism is the representation of another person's language, thoughts, ideas, or expressions as one's own original work.From the 1995 ''Random House Dictionary of the English Language, Random House Compact Unabridged Dictionary'': use or close ...

. The status of IGI Global has been a subject for discussion by authors on online platforms such as

ResearchGate ResearchGate is a European commercial social networking site for scientists and researchers to share papers, ask and answer questions, and find collaborators. According to a 2014 study by ''Nature'' and a 2016 article in ''Times Higher Education' ...

and

Reddit Reddit ( ) is an American Proprietary software, proprietary social news news aggregator, aggregation and Internet forum, forum Social media, social media platform. Registered users (commonly referred to as "redditors") submit content to the ...

. As of 2021, Beall's List listed IGI Global as a

vanity press A vanity press or vanity publisher, sometimes also subsidy publisher, is a book printer that is paid by authors to Self-published, self-publish their books. A vanity press charges fees in advance and does not contribute to the development of the ...

, noting that it is a member of

COPE A cope ( ("rain coat") or ("cape")) is a liturgical long mantle or cloak, open at the front and fastened at the breast with a band or clasp. It may be of any liturgical colour. A cope may be worn by any rank of the Catholic or Anglican clerg ...

. In 2023, IGI Global was assessed against other academic publishers by

Lithuania Lithuania, officially the Republic of Lithuania, is a country in the Baltic region of Europe. It is one of three Baltic states and lies on the eastern shore of the Baltic Sea, bordered by Latvia to the north, Belarus to the east and south, P ...

n experts and compared with the Norwegian Register for Scientific Journals, Series and Publishers, where it is assessed at "Level 1", meaning that it meets the minimum requirements to be considered scientific. Also in 2023, IGI Global's InfoSci Database was a collection of all of its 7.300+ reference books, handbooks, and encyclopedias, and c.30,000+ peer-reviewed journal articles (with 1,000,000+ citation references), including indexing by

and

Web of Science The Web of Science (WoS; previously known as Web of Knowledge) is a paid-access platform that provides (typically via the internet) access to multiple databases that provide reference and citation data from academic journals, conference proceedi ...

. IGI Global provides libraries with access to e-books in 11 core subject areas, with contributions by over 100,000 international researchers and experts. In July 2023, the AI-powered Zendy Research Library signed a

licensing agreement A license (American English) or licence (Commonwealth English) is an official permission or permit to do, use, or own something (as well as the document of that permission or permit). A license is granted by a party (licensor) to another part ...

with IGI Global. In April 2024, nearly 90% of IGI Global's frontlist books were indexed by

Imprints

IGI Global publishes English language content under the following four

imprints Imprint or imprinting may refer to: Entertainment * ''Imprint'' (TV series), Canadian television series * "Imprint" (''Masters of Horror''), episode of TV show ''Masters of Horror'' * ''Imprint'' (film), a 2007 independent drama/thriller film ...

: * Information Science Reference * Medical Information Science Reference * Business Science Reference * Engineering Science Reference

Journals

IGI Global publishes a number of

s including: * Journal of Cases on Information Technology * International Journal of Data Warehousing and Mining * Journal of Database Management *

International Journal of e-Collaboration International is an adjective (also used as a noun) meaning "between nations". International may also refer to: Music Albums * ''International'' (Kevin Michael album), 2011 * ''International'' (New Order album), 2002 * ''International'' (The T ...

* Journal of Global Information Management *

Information Resources Management Journal The ''Information Resources Management Journal'' (IRMJ) is a quarterly peer-reviewed applied research academic journal which focuses on information technology management. It is published by IGI Global. The journal was established in 1988. The jour ...

* International Journal of Intelligent Information Technologies * International Journal of Mobile and Blended Learning * Journal of Organizational and End User Computing * International Journal on Semantic Web and Information Systems * International Journal of Technoethics * International Journal of Web Services Research

References

{{reflist

External links

IGI Global website
1988 establishments in Pennsylvania Publishing companies established in 1988 Book publishing companies based in Pennsylvania Computer book publishing companies Academic publishing companies Hershey, Pennsylvania