About the Journal

Focus and Scope

EMISAJ publishes thoughtful, well-developed articles on all facets of analyzing, designing, investigating, evaluating and applying conceptual models, enterprise models, enterprise and information systems architectures, corresponding modeling languages and modeling methods, and is open to submissions from all scientific disciplines and research fields. The editorial board imposes no restrictions regarding the research paradigm or research method, encourages multidisciplinary research contributions, and welcomes submissions from for-profit, nonprofit and government organizations (see Journal Sections).

The journal will address (but will not limit itself to) the following specific areas:

  • General Purpose and Domain-Specific Modeling Languages
  • Modeling Methods, Metamodeling, Method Engineering
  • Enterprise Architectures, Information Systems Architectures
  • Ontologies and Reference Models
  • Analysis Patterns, Design Patterns, Architectural Patterns
  • Analysis of Conceptual Models and Modeling Languages
  • Evaluation and Quality of Conceptual Models, Architectures, and Languages
  • Model-Driven Development, Models@run-time, Executable Models
  • Business Process Management
  • Enterprise Architecture Management
  • Information Systems Design and Design Methods
  • Information Systems Development Methods and Tools
  • Software Tools for Conceptual and Enterprise Modeling, Business Process Management and Enterprise Architecture Management
  • Learning and Teaching Conceptual Modeling
  • Applications of Conceptual Modeling in Organizations
  • Innovative Approaches to Conceptual Modeling

EMISAJ is a publisher-independent journal, and is published by the German Informatics Society (GI) and is a publication of its SIG on Modeling Business Information Systems (SIG MoBIS) and its SIG on Design Methods for Information Systems (SIG EMISA).

Advantages of publishing in EMISAJ

  • Fast review cycles with constructive reviews (targeted at 8 weeks per review cycle)
  • Immediate publishing online after acceptance and copyediting
  • No limitation of length of submission (contact the editorial office if >50 pages)
  • True Open Access (no author fees, no exclusive rights to publish)
  • International board of renowned editors
  • Ranked as WKWI JourQual C and by NSD in Norway
  • Indexed by DBLP and EBSCO (further indexing in preparation)
  • Articles reachable via Digital Object Identifier (DOI)
  • Long-time archiving with Private LOCKSS Network (PLN) by decentralized and distributed preservation

Submitting to EMISAJ

The editorial board invites submissions of these types: Original Research Contribution, Research Note, Industry/Experience Report, Report on Tool and Tool Application, and Reply to a Published Article (see Journal Sections). Manuscripts are prepared using a LaTeX package specific to the journal or by using any other text processing software (see Author Guidelines) and are submitted and published online. 'About the journal’ provides further information about the journal.

Section Policies


Original Research Contribution (Research Article)

Original research contributions are double-blind peer-reviewed by at least three reviewers, and must adhere to scholarly standards in terms of originality, level of abstraction and justification. The journal imposes no restrictions regarding the research paradigm or research method and is open to submissions from all scientific fields. Note that submissions to this section may include large-scale (meta-)models, comprehensive language specifications, and other extensive artefacts.

Checked Open Submissions Checked Indexed Checked Peer Reviewed

Research Note

Research notes intend to advance new perspectives and research directions, new theoretical lenses and methodological approaches. In contrast to full research papers, research notes primarily seek to stimulate discussions among the EMISAJ community by putting interesting and possibly controversial, non-mainstream thinking up for discussion. The intention of a research note is thus to act as an incubator for new thinking in conceptual modeling research. Authors should efficiently argue how and why their contribution is novel and interesting and why it should stimulate a discussion among the community. A research note typically ranges from 4 to 10 pages including figures and references. Research notes are reviewed by at least two reviewers.

Checked Open Submissions Checked Indexed Checked Peer Reviewed

Industry/Experience Report

Submissions to this section will be reviewed by at least two reviewers with reviewing criteria adapted to the specific purposes of reports from for-profit, nonprofit and government organizations. Submissions to this category may, for example, discuss the application of modeling methods and languages and refer to a specific case in an organization. Ideally, submissions should entail a description of the practical problem(s), the specifics of the case, and a discussion of design alternatives and design decisions as well as of the lessons learned.

Checked Open Submissions Checked Indexed Checked Peer Reviewed

Report on Tool and Tool Application

Reports on Tools and Tool Applications describe and evaluate software tools and tool applications in the journal's areas of interest, e.g., (meta-)modeling tools, tools for M2M- and M2T-transformations, and software architectures of such tools. A submission to this section should describe and justify the tool design including all relevant design objectives and requirements, design alternatives and decisions and its software architecture. The tool description should focus on the specific features of the tool and relate the tool to other tools and prior related work. It is strongly encouraged that the described tools are freely available (i.e. Libre/Free/Open Source Software at best). If this is not possible, they have to be made available to the reviewers for the reviewing process (contact the editorial office for an arrangement). Submissions to this section are double-blind peer-reviewed by at least two reviewers (with review criteria adapted to the specifics of this section), and must adhere to scholarly standards in terms of originality, level of abstraction and justification.

Checked Open Submissions Checked Indexed Checked Peer Reviewed

Reply to Published Article

The editorial board welcomes reply articles to previously published papers to foster scientific discourse. Submissions to this category are reviewed by the editors-in-chief.

Checked Open Submissions Checked Indexed Unchecked Peer Reviewed

Invited Contribution

This journal section is reserved for contributions invited by the Editors-in-Chief. Submissions will be reviewed by the Editors-in-Chief but will not run through the regular peer review process. The "Invited Contribution" section is intended for position papers, keynote papers and the like.

Unchecked Open Submissions Checked Indexed Unchecked Peer Reviewed

Publication Frequency

Starting with Vol. 11 (2016) a rolling publication mode ('publish-as-you-go') will be employed with submissions accepted for publication appearing as soon as the final publication document has been produced. Thus, the publishing cycle is shorter and new research results are available earlier.

Open Access Policy

This journal provides immediate open access to its content on the principle that making research freely available to the public supports a greater global exchange of knowledge.