Proposing special issues

In addition to its annual thematic issue, Transformations: A DARIAH Journal may publish special issues to broaden the journal’s topical coverage while maintaining its scholarly standards.
The journal will normally run no more than one special issue per year unless the Editorial Board explicitly approves otherwise.

Definitions

  • Special issue: a curated collection of scholarly content on a focused topic published as a volume in Transformations
    • Open special issue: a special issue in which contributions are solicited by guest editors via a public call for contributions
    • Invited special issue: a special issue in which contributors are solicited by guest editors without a public call for contributions
  • Guest editors: scholars appointed by the EB to oversee the production of a special issue.

Responsibility and oversight

In line with DOAJ criteria:

  • The Editor-in-Chief (EiC) is responsible for the content and integrity of the entire journal, including all special issues; every special issue must fall within the journal’s scope;
  • Special issues, both open and invited,  receive the same editorial oversight and external peer review as annual issues;
  • The Editorial Board (EB) must check and approve guest editors’ credentials;
  • Submissions authored/co-authored by guest editors must be handled independently (assigned to EiC with no guest-editor access to decision-making for that paper);
  • Such submissions must comprise no more than 25% of articles in the special issue;
  • Guest editors must declare conflicts (institutional, collaborative, personal) for each submission;
  • EiC may reassign handling editor/reviewers where necessary.

Guest editors are expected to:

  • adhere to the journal’s intellectual and ethical standards and scope, and ensure the  timeline is respected;
  • prepare and disseminate the call for contributions in coordination with the EiC);
  • suggest suitable reviewers, contribute to peer review where appropriate, oversee the revision process, and
  • write the editorial introduction.

Multilingualism

Transformations supports multilingual scholarly communication as a core scholarly value and recognises the importance of debates in the digital arts and humanities being conducted in languages other than English.

Accordingly:

  • Special issues may be published entirely in a language other than English
  • The choice of language must be justified in the proposal in relation to the topic, scholarly community addressed, and intended contribution
  • Multilingual special issues are subject to the same editorial oversight, peer-review standards, and publication ethics as English-language issues

Guest editors must demonstrate that they can ensure appropriate peer review in the language of publication, including access to qualified reviewers without conflicts of interest. They must also demonstrate that they have established contacts with professional copyeditors in the language concerned. The Editorial Board retains responsibility for assessing whether sufficient review and copyediting capacity exists before approving a multilingual issue.

Visibility and accessibility

To ensure discoverability and accessibility across linguistic communities:

  • Each multilingual special issue must include:
    • an English-language title, keywords and abstract for the volume as a whole;
    • English-language abstracts and keywords for all individual articles, regardless of the language of the full texts
  • Keywords must be provided in both the language of publication and English.

Call for proposals

The EB will occasionally run calls for proposals for special issues. Calls for special issues are typically issued in the first half of a given year, with the selected issue scheduled for publication by the end of the following year. 

All proposals must be written in English and include:

  • Working title + thematic rationale highlighting its originality (1 page, can be in the form of the prospective call for contributions, if appropriate);
  • Fit with the journal scope;
  • What is the reason and the added value of using Transformations as a publication venue?
  • Guest editor(s): names, affiliations, short bios, relevant editorial and Open Science experience
  • Expected size (target number of published articles - based on our internal editorial and copyediting capacity, as well as the funding available, Transformations can usually process around 6-8 published articles per volume) + indicative contributor pool (if known);
  • Proposed timeline (call/invitations, submission window, review, publication);
  • Risk & workload note (reviewer availability, expected volume, mitigation);
  • Statement confirming compliance with journal policies and publication ethics

Approval process

  1. Editorial screening (EiC + EB): scope fit; originality; feasibility; capacity impact; reputational risk.
  2. Decision: Accept / Accept with revisions / Decline (with brief reasons).

If accepted, EB confirms:

  • guest editor team
  • target volume size and timeline

Review and decision workflow (same as regular articles)

  • Desk screening (fit + basic quality threshold);
  • External peer review (same standards and number of reports as regular articles);
  • Revisions managed to the same acceptance bar;
  • Final accept/reject decision rests with EiC), not guest editors acting alone. 

Indicative timeline (coming soon)

Open Call for special issue proposals:
Decision: 
Call for contributions to special issue: 
Peer review: 
Proof-reading, formatting: 
Target publication: