About the Journal

Focus and Scope

Umanistica Digitale is the journal of the Italian Association of Digital Humanities (AIUCD - Associazione per l’Informatica Umanistica e la Cultura Digitale). In keeping with the objectives of the Association, Umanistica Digitale serves as a discussion venue for topics pertaining to the Digital Humanities, ranging from the theoretical and methodological foundations of computational models in social science to the development and application of computational systems and digital tools in the humanities; from the study of new phenomena in internet cultures, to the analysis of changes happening in scientific communication and in research infrastructures. Umanistica Digitale is a scientific journal targeted at a specific community; nevertheless, it aspires to become an open space, one that is accessible to as wide and varied an audience as possible in order to enrich its primary audience.

Peer Review Process

Acceptance of articles for publication in Umanistica Digitale is subject to peer-review. A first rating of submitted proposals will be made at least by one editor, who will send accepted papers to at least one chosen member of the Review committee for a standard peer review procedure. As part of the initial quality assessment, each article will undergo plagiarism detection through iThenticate.

The selection of reviewers is carried out by the Editorial Board, taking into account their expertise and knowledge of the selected papers topics. Reviewers can be associate members of the AIUCD association or invited external.

Authors and editors' suggestions, as well as previous reviews are taken into account during the peer-review process. Works undergo a single-blind peer review process, which means that reviewers know the identity of the authors but not vice versa.

The aim is to provide authors with motivated judgements on the quality of the proposed work and suggestions on possible improvements for publication.

First time reviewers will be informally notified by e-mail of an invitation to review for Umanistica Digitale. To accept the invitation reply via the e-mail, including both the Journal Editor and the Journal Manager.

Reviewers will be sent an e-mail including title and abstract of the manuscript assigned, a URL identifying the submission, and the deadline for the review. Reviewers will be asked to register as soon as possible, selecting “reviewer” as role, if they do not have an account yet.

Once logged in and accessed the URL sent via e-mail for the submission, a reviewer is asked to formally accept to review the paper. A pre-filled email will be displayed and sent to the Editorial Board. Then the manuscript can be downloaded.

Within 4 weeks following the invitation, the review has to be submitted. When submitting a review for the Article Section, a form is displayed, and the reviewer is required to both select scores related to specific questions, and to attach the review in the text form. PDF Files can be attached.

For any enquiries, please contact the Journal Manager.

Publication Frequency

The journal publishes two issues a year, operating in a continuous article publication (CAP). Special numbers can occasionally be published outside the normal periodization.

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.

It releases its articles under the terms of Creative Commons Attribution 4.0 International License.

This license allows anyone to download, reuse, re-print, modify, distribute and/or copy the contributions. The works must be properly attributed to its author(s). It is not necessary to ask further permissions both to author(s) or journal board.

Authors who publish on this journal maintain the copyrights.

The journal has neither article processing charges nor submission processing fees.

Publication Ethics

The following statement is inspired by the COPE Code of Conduct.

Duties for the Editorial Team

The editorial team takes all reasonable steps to ensure the quality of the material published in Umanistica Digitale.

The editorial team have a duty to act if they suspect misconduct or if an allegation of misconduct is brought to them. This duty extends to both published and unpublished papers.

The decision of the editorial team and of the International Editorial Board with regard to accepting or rejecting a paper for publication in the journal is based on subject relevance and originality and is guided by the review of suitably qualified reviewers.

The editorial team will ensure that appropriate reviewers are selected for submissions.

The editorial team strives to ensure that peer review at the journal is fair, unbiased and timely.

A description of the peer-review process is published, and the editorial team is ready to justify any important deviation from the described process.

The editorial team and the International Editorial Board evaluates manuscripts for their intellectual content regardless of the authors' race, gender, sexual orientation, religious belief, ethnic origin, citizenship, or political philosophy.

The editorial team’s decision may be constrained by such legal requirements regarding libel, copyright infringement and plagiarism. The editorial team provides authors with guidance that encourages accuracy, completeness and clarity of research reporting, including technical editing and the use of appropriate guidelines and checklists.

The editorial team has a system to ensure that material submitted to the journal remains confidential while under review. Confidentiality of individual information obtained in the course of research or professional interactions is guaranteed.

Duties for Authors

Authors are responsible for the articles they submit: they must assure the originality of their works, being aware of the consequences of misconduct.

Authors should always acknowledge their sources and provide relevant citation details for all publications that have influenced their work.

Authors are asked to provide the raw data in connection with a paper for editorial review, and should be prepared to retain the data for access for a reasonable time-period after publication.

Authors are asked to follow the Author’s Guidelines published by the journal, therefore ensuring accuracy, completeness and clarity of research reporting and technical editing.

Duties of Reviewers

Reviewers are provided guidance on everything that is expected of them including the need to handle submitted material in confidence.

Reviewers are required to disclose any potential competing interests before agreeing to review a submission.

Reviewers are encouraged to comment on the originality of submissions and to be alert to redundant publications and plagiarism. They will inform the editorial team regarding intellectual property issues and plagiarism and help handle potential breaches of intellectual property laws and conventions.

Reviewers should help identify relevant published work that has not been cited by the authors.

Handling of errors and misconducts

Editors will promptly act in case of errors and misconducts, both proven and alleged. In case such as errors in articles or in the publication process, fraudulent publication or plagiarism, appropriate steps will be taken, following the recommendations, guidelines and checklists from COPE. These includes the publication of an erratum (errors from the publication process), corrigendum (errors from the author(s)) or, in the most severe cases, the retraction of the affected work.

The journal policies will be reviewed periodically, particularly with respect to new recommendations from the COPE.

Data Policy

When relevant, authors are encouraged to follow Open Science and FAIR principles by publishing the research data associated to their articles in trusted data repositories, according to the international best practices and data management guidelines.

Detailed information is reported in the AlmaDL Journals Data Policy.

Authors who are affiliated to the University of Bologna can publish their data in AMSActa, the institutional research data repository.

Archiving policy

The University of Bologna has an archival arrangement with the National Central Libraries of Florence and Rome within the national project Magazzini Digitali.

Indexing and abstracting

The Journal is indexed in the following databases and search engines:

  • ACNP – Italian Catalogue of Serials
  • BASE – Bielefield Academic Search Engine
  • DOAJ – Directory of Open Access Journals
  • Elektronische Zeitschriftenbibliothek – Universitätsbibliothek Regensburg
  • ERIH PLUS – European Reference Index for the Humanities and the Social Sciences
  • EZB – Electronic Journals Library, University of Regensburg
  • Google Scholar – Academic search engine
  • Mir@bel – Le site web qui facilite l’accès aux revues
  • ROAD – Directory of Open Access Scholarly Resources
  • Scopus – The largest database of peer-reviewed literature
  • Ulrichsweb – Global Serials Directory

Publisher