Submissions

Author Guidelines

Authors are invited to submit articles relating to data management, curation, or preservation of digital resources. The editors will inform you if your paper does not appear to be within the scope of the journal. For further information on this scope please refer to ‘About the Journal’.

Please register with this site and submit manuscripts by logging in above. This allows you more easily to track the progress of your submission.

The IJDC Template

The IJDC supplies a template as an example of the required layout. It contains guidance on formatting your submission and preparing the references list of citations within your article. We currently provide a template in MS Word format. Submissions can also be made in the ODT format used by LibreOffice. 

• Download Word Template

If you have any queries about the template please contact ijdc@mlist.is.ed.ac.uk 

Important notes:

1. Submissions in the Research Paper, Conference Paper and General Article categories should be 5,000- 7,000 words in length. Brief Reports should be 2,000 - 4,000 words. These word counts exclude the first page, references, and any appendices. These figures are a guideline. Longer submisisions may be acceptable, at the editors discretion.
2. When submitting your article please ensure you complete the metadata we need, preferably using the submission form. This must include at least the names, email addresses, and organisation of ALL authors. The article metadata must also include a title,  the text of an abstract, and the type of article you are submitting  (=section of the journal). You can do this on the submission form on the website, or in the body of a submission email. Failure to supply this information at submission stage will delay publication of your article.
3. Unless you are submitting a Conference Paper, PLEASE DO NOT INCLUDE IDENTIFYING INFORMATION IN THE BODY OF YOUR SUBMISSION, and please also delete any that might be found in the document properties/metadata. 
4. ALL submissions must use the IJDC template. The preferred submission formats are MS Word or Open Document format. If you require LaTeX for mathematical notation please contact the editors for advice on submitting in this format.  Lone PDF files or hard copies will not be accepted as complete submissions.
5. If you are including supplementary content, i.e. any content not intended for presentation within the published version of your paper, please supply it in a separate file or files rather than within the body of your manuscript text.
6. Please refer to the Data Policy (under ‘About the Journal’) and be prepared to provide the appropriate sources for the type of article you are submitting.
7. The journal uses an adapted form of American Psychological Association (APA) bibliographic and formatting standards. For example:

Rusbridge, C., & Lyon, E. (2005). Editorial. The International Journal of Digital Curation 1(1), 1-2. doi:10.2218/ijdc.v1i1.1

If you submit a paper or article written using another citation and formatting manual, this will not be grounds for rejection, but we will require you to reformat your submission prior to publication.

More examples of APA referencing style can be found in the APA Style and Grammar Guidelines.

We acknowledge receipt of all papers submitted to us. If you have not received an acknowledgement within 10 days of submission please contact us.

Section Policies

Research Papers Articles in this section describe outcomes of any form of research activity that investigates questions relating to research data management, digital preservation or curation. Papers present a new model or substantial insight supported by significant analysis of evidence. They also describe how to access any data that a reader may need to assess this evidence. 

Open Submissions

Indexed

Peer Reviewed

Contributions to the Brief Reports and General Articles sections describe approaches to data management and curation challenges, showing how these have been or will be addressed. The challenges and approaches may be policy-related, organisational or technical, or any combination of these.

Brief Reports outline a use case for data management or curation, an architecture or implementation approach, or how a particular community has been involved in improving relevant practices. They may also be a review of existing work in some particular area, whether subject-based or geographical. Summaries of Lightning Talks accepted for the International Digital Curation Conference (IDCC) may be submitted as Brief Reports.

Open Submissions

Indexed

Peer Reviewed

General Articles cover similar scope to Brief Reports, providing enough detail for a reader to be able to apply the approach described in the article, in a context more familiar to them.

Open Submissions

Indexed

Peer Reviewed

Open Submissions

Indexed

Peer Reviewed

Editorial and Peer Review Guidelines

Any submission to IJDC must have a title and abstract. The article contents must be written using clear language, and should accurately reflect the title and abstract. The article must present a coherently structured argument with sufficient context for the reader, provide conclusions backed up by evidence, cite relevant sources, and offer concrete examples where appropriate.  It must also do at least one of the following: -

- provide results or data of use to the reader

- contribute something new to an existing debate

- provide a solution to a problem, new or existing

- impart experience or findings which assist others

Brief Reports and General Articles must include some evidence that a community’s need for support with data management or digital curation has been met or will be met by the approach described in the report. The article/report may describe an approach to (e.g.) policy adoption or implementation, or evaluate an existing solution. Alternatively it may also describe a use case that fulfils a community need, or a method for engaging  a user community.  

Research Papers must, in addition to the above, present original material that tests a hypothesis, or provides a new model, or offers substantial new insights and understanding of a problem in digital curation, preservation, or research data management.

Conference Papers are published from the International Digital Curation Conference (IDCC) if they have been accepted on the basis of a peer-reviewed extended abstract and presented at the conference.  Papers may alternatively be submitted for review as Research Papers or General Articles

Data Policy

It is a condition of publication of Research Papers that any data used by the authors as evidence for their conclusions must be placed in a repository offering an appropriate degree of assurance about its long-term accessibility. This data may have been collected by the authors or derived from existing sources, and in the latter case the derived dataset should normally be placed in a repository. A metadata record of the repository item must be publicly accessible, and given a permanent and resolvable identifier (e.g., a DOI, Handle, or ARK). A link to this record should be included in the References section of your submission.

The data itself should be made as openly accessible as possible, either by time of publication, or beforehand if a reviewer asks for it. The editors will accept restrictions on access to the data if these are justifiable due to copyright, licence or confidentiality agreements, ethical guidelines, or data protection regulations.

General Articles, Conference Papers, and Brief Reports only require data to be made accessible in a repository if they present any claims or conclusions from data analysis. However, authors must include a verifiable public source of evidence of their described approach for addressing a community need for curation and data management. If the approach has not yet been applied, evidence may take the form of a project page or other information demonstrating support for the approach.