For authors

Author Guidelines

Transformations is committed to publishing high-quality, innovative research in the arts and humanities that reflects the diversity of digital methods, data, and tools shaping the field. We welcome traditional research articles as well as non-traditional formats such as data papers and workflow papers, recognising that scholarly contributions today take many different forms. Our goal is to provide a platform that supports methodological innovation, transparency, and critical reflection, while ensuring accessibility and sustainability.

Each submission type has specific requirements regarding scope, length, and evaluation:

• Research articles: 30,000–50,000 characters. Present a well-defined research question, contextualise it in relation to the state of the art, and demonstrate scholarly significance in terms of theoretical reflection, methodological innovation and/or development of tooling.
• Data papers: 18,000–24,000 characters. Provide structured documentation and contextualisation of a dataset. The focus is on transparency, metadata, standards, and reuse potential rather than on answering a concrete research question.
• Workflow papers: 18,000–24,000 characters. Describe and contextualise a research workflow — the sequence of steps used to implement a methodology or assist in the process of analysis. They should explain motivations, illustrate use cases, and highlight reusability and sustainability.

All word counts include bibliography, spaces, footnotes, tables, figures, and captions. For the specific evaluation criteria applied to each submission type, see Section on the Evaluation process.

To help authors prepare for submission to Transformations, we have prepared detailed Author Guidelines covering a range of both scholarly and technical matters. We strongly encourage authors to consult these guidelines before beginning work on their submissions, as they provide essential information on expectations, requirements, and best practices.

Evaluation process

All submissions to Transformations will undergo an open peer review process. We use open identities, which means that author and reviewer identities are disclosed to each other. This kind of transparency fosters mutual accountability, encourages constructive and respectful feedback, and helps us build a culture of scholarly dialogue rather than anonymous judgement. We do not publish the review reports themselves.

We rely on ethical guidelines for peer reviewers from COPE. Reviewers are asked to provide informative feedback, even if an article is not deemed suitable for publication in the journal.

Before submitting their contribution, authors are strongly encouraged to consult the evaluation criteria used by reviewers to ensure clarity, coherence, and scholarly value across different types of submissions. Each submission type — research article, data paper, and workflow paper — has its own set of criteria tailored to its specific scope and purpose. At the same time, all submission types are assessed across the same four overarching dimensions: state of the art, content, form, and accessibility and reusability.

Research Articles

State of the art

• Is the state of the art comprehensive? Does it provide orientation for both specialists and non-specialists?
• Is the bibliography representative of all the major areas touched by the submission?
• Are the references critically discussed and well integrated into the argumentation?

Content

• What are the main contributions of this submission?
• Does the manuscript demonstrate overall quality in terms of the research methodology, use of data, general discussion etc.?
• Does the manuscript offer useful insights to potential readers in terms of its approach or findings?

Form

• Is the content easy to understand, with clear explanations and appropriate language for the intended audience?
• Does the submission demonstrate a high level of clarity and coherence in its argumentation?

Accessibility and reusability

• Are the data and tools referred to in the manuscript accessible in a trusted repository or equivalent sustainable environment? (see DARIAH Data policy p. 8)
• If relevant: is the data collection method clearly laid out, rigorous and reproducible?
• If relevant: is the data referred to in the submission of high quality and reliable (formats, database structure, data organisation, data integrity, permanent identifiers)?
• Are the data and tools referred to in the submission re-usable (documentation, licences, standards etc.)?

Data Papers

State of the art

• Does the submission provide information about existing datasets or publications that are related to the dataset being described (where applicable)?
• Does the submission explain how this dataset differs from or improves upon the existing ones?
• Are the bibliographic references up to date and relevant?

Content

• Does the data paper provide the context in which the dataset was produced?
  • Was the dataset created as part of a research project, thesis, course work, or data used in a paper(s)?
  • Who are the authors, funders?
  • What were the motivations for collecting this data?
  • Does the submission explain the procedures and methodology followed to produce the dataset (software and instrumentation involved)?
• Does the submission clarify the methods used for quality control in the production of the dataset (i.e. steps taken to normalise the data)?

Form

• Is the content easy to understand, with clear explanations and appropriate language for the intended audience?
• Does the submission demonstrate a high level of clarity and coherence in its argumentation?

Accessibility and Reusability

• Is the dataset described in the data paper accessible in a trusted research data repository or equivalent sustainable environment (see DARIAH Data policy p. 8)
• Is the dataset documented with rich metadata using widely adopted standards (i.e. Text Encoding Initiative - TEI, Music Encoding Initiative - MEI, Encoded Archival Description - EAD, Europeana Data Model - EDM, etc.)
• Are the reuse conditions of the dataset specified? (i.e. Licences CC0 or CC-BY)

Workflow Papers

State of the art

• Does the submission provide information about existing datasets or publications that are related to the workflow being described (where applicable)?
• Does the submission explain how this workflow differs from or improves upon the existing ones?
• Are the bibliographic references up to date and relevant?

Content

• Are the goals of the workflow clearly stated?
  • Is the workflow sufficiently contextualised?
  • Was the workflow created as part of a research project, thesis, course work, or used in a paper(s)?
  • Who are the authors, funders?
• Does the manuscript demonstrate overall quality in terms of the strength of argumentation, research methodology, use of data, general discussion, etc.?
• Is there a use case and how clearly is it presented in its connection to the workflow?
• Is there a section on the reusability of the workflow?

Form

• Is the content easy to understand, with clear explanations and appropriate language for the intended audience?

Accessibility and reusability

• Are the tools and datasets used in the workflow accessible in a trusted or reliable repository or equivalent sustainable environment? (see DARIAH Data policy, p. 8)
• Is the workflow reusable? (e.g., licensing, FAIR, use of discipline-relevant standards)
• Bonus: Is the workflow referenced on the SSH-Open Marketplace?

The publication process of Transformations is backed up by open repositories such as HAL or Zenodo. In practice, an author deposits their proposed article in an open archive before connecting to the Transformations website and proposing it for review. The deposit of a pre-publication in an open archive allows the author to make their research available immediately and prevent from possible plagiarism (institutional open archives time-stamp the deposit, which is then indexed in scientific databases and research engines).

Detailed information on the article submission procedure is available in the Episciences documentation. The editorial workflow can be summarized as follows: