Reviews in Digital Humanities Review Process & Submissions

Reviews in Digital Humanities regularly accepts submissions by the first day of each month. We welcome inquiries and expressions of interest as well. For inquiries or to submit your project for review, please contact the editors, Jennifer Guiliano and Roopika Risam, at reviewsindigitalhumanities@gmail.com.

Selection for Review

Work to be reviewed is selected in two ways: 1) at the request of project directors who agree to be added to the reviewer pool and to provide one review in the future; 2) by request of the editors and editorial board. The editors also will periodically issue thematic calls for projects on particular topics. As review criteria will change based on the type of output being evaluated, we ask all digital projects that will be considered for review be accompanied by a 500-word overview that will be published in the journal and included in the project registry. This overview will guide the reviewer in understanding the project’s purpose and humanistic and technical work, as well as to establish an official citation for the project if one does not currently exist. This will supplement additional suggested review guidelines outlined below.

Review Workflow

All digital projects will be listed on our website as part of the registry upon their nomination or review, unless otherwise requested by project directors. Projects will be sent out for review by the editors. We will regularly request volunteer reviewers who are willing to review unassigned projects. Reviewers will indicate whether a project receives an “acceptance,” “revise and resubmit,” or “rejection.” Projects that are accepted will have their overviews and reviews published in the journal. Reviews, once received by the editors, are sent to members of the editorial board for comment, thus ensuring that most reviews are edited by at least two people. Unless editorial intervention is significant, reviews will be published upon completion of the editorial process. The entire process can take as long as three months, but most reviews are published more quickly.

Project Overview Content

Projects submitted for review must be accompanied by a project overview, which will be 500 words in length and should include, where appropriate: 

• description of the project

• description of the process of creating the project, both in terms of humanistic claims and content and technical infrastructure

• description of the team behind the project and expertise contributed to the project

• description of the audience for the project

• description of project in relation to professional guidelines for evaluating digital scholarship like those provided by the MLA and AHA, including, where relevant: engagement of new audiences; funding, awards or other recognition; adoption and use of the output by other scholars; and citations of the project in scholarship or press.

Overviews should include at the top of the document the following information:

Project Name

Name of Project Director(s) or Team Members:

Project URLS

Keywords

Keywords should be selected from the project registry list and include, if appropriate, time period, field of study, and topic or method.

A list of suggested reviewers who are free of conflict of interest.

Review Content

Reviews will be 500 words in length and should include, where appropriate:

• a formal citation to the project using the information provided by the project team

• a brief summary of the project and its purpose

• an assessment of the humanistic claims and evidence

• an assessment of the technology used/developed

• an analysis of the project and its place within existing scholarship and technological practices

• an evaluation of the project in relation to professional guidelines for evaluating digital scholarship like those provided by the MLA and AHA, including, where relevant: engagement of new audiences; funding, awards or other recognition; adoption and use of the output by other scholars; and citations of the project in scholarship or press

• identification of interesting, outstanding or problematic issues.

Reviews will not have:

• ad hominem arguments

• excessive detail or quotation

• attacks of any kind, including not being the project the reviewer would have developed.

All reviews should be submitted following the template provided in your reviewer solicitation.

Submitted reviews will be read by two editors for content, grammar, and style. Reviews that require minimal correction will not returned to the reviewers before publication. All completed reviews will be open access and published with a CC BY license with authors retaining copyright to their reviews. Reviewers are welcome to archive copies of their reviews on their own or institutional websites or repositories and to list their reviews on their CV. Some reviews may be embargoed at the request of the author or project team. The embargo will not last more than 3 months.

Reviews may be rejected for publication upon recommendation of the editors. Reviews in Digital Humanities recognizes the importance of reviews to tenure, promotion, and future funding of projects. As such, we will not post reviews that are categorically negative. Instead, these reviews will be shared with the project team in confidence. The project will remain in the registry but can be resubmitted for future consideration after substantive efforts have been made to address concerns of the review and editorial staff. In this case, the original review is returned to the author. In recognition of the labor involved in reviewing, Reviews in Digital Humanities will provide (upon request) an official letter noting the completion of the review so that the author can ensure that they receive credit on their CV. 

Reviews are normally published within two weeks of receipt, but please allow six weeks before contacting us (and at that point, please do contact us if your review has not been published or if you have not heard from us).