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Author Guidelines 

 

Topical Scope

The Cultural Heritage sector spans many distinct sub-areas, which may be divided into two major classifications:

  • Tangible heritage, such as the discovery, documentation, organization, interpretation and communication of artifacts, monuments, sites, museums, and collections (including digital archives, catalogues and libraries);

  • Intangible heritage, such as music, performance, storytelling, and mythology.

At the interface between these two areas lies the area of historical and cultural interpretation. The increasing volume of digital cultural artifacts and collections is becoming an important body of heritage content in its own right. Finally the area of collections, their organisation, cataloging, management and interrogation is also an area of interest for the journal.

Topics include (but are not limited to) the following areas:

  • On-site and remotely sensed data collection
  • Enhanced 2D media for CH
  • 3D digital artifact capture, representation and manipulation
  • Tools for reconstruction and processing of digital representations
  • Metadata, classification schema, ontologies and semantic processing for CH multimedia repositories
  • Analytic tools to assist scholars' research on collections or artifacts
  • ICT assistance in monitoring and restoration
  • Augmentation of physical collections with digital presentations
  • Virtual and Augmented Reality technologies for virtual and digital museums
  • Human-Computer interfaces for virtual and digital museums
  • Story-telling and other forms of communication, multimedia systems
  • Serious games
  • Web-based and mobile technologies for CH
  • Long term preservation of digital artifacts
  • Provenance, copyright and IPR
  • Digital capture and annotation of intangible heritage (performance, audio, dance, oral heritage)
  • ICT technologies in support of creating new cultural experiences or digital artifacts
  • Applications (e.g. in Education and Tourism)

JOCCH seeks content that combines the best of computing science with real attention to any aspect of the cultural heritage sector. Submissions are sought under two broad categories: Use-inspired Basic Research and Applied Research; and may be one of several types (see Type of papers): research paper; tutorial/survey; research note/short paper; software/algorithms; addendum/corrections; datasets.

Please note this journal uses CrossCheck software to screen papers to ensure originality. By submitting your paper to JOCCH you are agreeing to any necessary checks your manuscript may undergo during the peer review process. For more information on CrossCheck see at http://www.crossref.org/crosscheck/crosscheck_for_researchers.html
ACM has recently published new Fair Use Guidelines for authors whose manuscripts include third-party material. They can be found at http://www.acm.org/publications/guidance-for-authors-on-fair-use.

ACM Policy on Authorship

The ACM Policy on Authorship states that anyone listed as Author on an ACM paper must meet all the following criteria:

  • they have made substantial intellectual contributions to some components of the original work described in the paper; and

  • they have participated in drafting and/or revision of the paper; and

  • they are aware that the paper has been submitted for publication; and

  • they agree to be held accountable for any issues relating to correctness or integrity of the work.

Other contributors may be acknowledged at the end of the paper, before the bibliography, with explicitly described roles, preferably using the roles found in the CASRAI Contributor Roles Taxonomy at http://dictionary.casrai.org/Contributor_Roles.

Type of papers

Submissions are sought under two broad categories: Use-inspired Basic Research and Applied Research

Contributions under the Use-inspired Basic Research category describe results which push forward the bounds of knowledge in computing science and are grounded on evidence-based need from the cultural heritage sector.

Applied Research contributions take state-of-the-art results from general computing science and apply them to real data from the cultural heritage sector – evidencing their effectiveness with reference to feedback from intended beneficiaries.

Submissions may be one of several types:

  1. Research paper: Presents results of original research, typically a long paper (10-20 print pages or 5,000-10,000 words). The primary purpose of a research paper is to present an interpretation based on the technology, where the interpretation advances cultural heritage studies and enhances our understanding of the technology. These papers should state clearly the interpretative problem that the research seeks to address and should explain why the technology that is employed advances the interpretation or enables a new type of analysis.

  2. Tutorial/Survey: Presents an overview of a topic in which the value of the synthesis lies in its ability to demonstrate important research problems or directions for further research, typically a long paper (10-20 print pages or 5,000-10,000 words).

  3. Research Note/Short Paper: Describes results of a single project or experiment that illuminates an important but limited issue or problem or extends understanding of an existing problem or technique, typically a short paper (3-5 pages or 1,500-2,500 words).

  4. Software/Algorithms: Describes and evaluates new software or algorithm in a long paper (10-20 print pages or 5,000-10,000 words), with the primary purpose of advancing the technology with an application to cultural heritage studies. The paper should explain clearly the technological problem that the research addresses, the innovative software solution proposed, and how they relate to CH applications.

  5. Addendum/Corrections: Extends prior work or provides a clarification or correction, typically a short paper (3-5 pages or 1,500-2,500 words).

  6. Datasets: Describes a new or expanded accessible dataset or data resource, which explains the structure of the dataset, its potential use and audiences, its innovative characteristics, access policies, archiving and preservation policies, and evaluation; may be either a long paper (10-20 print pages or 5,000-10,000 words) or a short paper (3-5 pages or 1,500-2,500 words). Please note that in order to be considered for publication the manuscript should present a sufficiently wide/general dataset. Therefore, the dataset should be accessible and available to support the research activity of a large community of researchers rather than a small and very specific research domain.

We note that there are no required page lengths; the page lengths and word counts given above are provided as guidance and to suggest the scope of submission. Page counts will not be used to determine the eligibility of a submission for further review. However, length may be considered during the review process.

Special Issues

Periodically we will issue calls for submissions for Special Issues.  Please watch our "Announcements" page in the Editors section for upcoming calls.

Format

We prefer manuscripts submitted in PDF format, but can also accept PostScript or Microsoft Word documents. Supplementary electronic material can accompany a submission, and can be made available with the paper on the JOCCH web page immediately upon acceptance and in the ACM Digital Library after the submission is published.

Typesetting JOCCH submissions using LateX and the collaborative Overleaf tool

Overleaf (https://www.overleaf.com/) is an online cloud-based resource to write and typeset papers with LateX. It is a collaborative platform: authors can easily invite colleagues to collaborate on documents.
ACM has partnered with Overleaf, to provide an ACM LaTeX authoring template for all ACM journals and conferences.
To produce a JOCCH submission, please use the ACM Large template on OverLeaf.
 JOCCH authors just need to set the  \acmJournal{}  parameter to \acmJournal{JOCCH}

Submission Instructions

JOCCH accepts submissions electronically via Scholar One Manuscript. Authors should create an account and password, login by selecting “Journal on Computing and Cultural Heritage”, and proceed to the Author Center to submit a manuscript. For a quick Author guide, see: Author.pdf

The Journal submission process is unlike that of a conference, workshop or symposium.

  • There is no deadline.

    Submit your manuscript when it is ready.

  • There is only a suggested word/page limit.

    Use the least number of pages necessary to adequately describe your results and place them in context. It is unlikely that this will exceed 20 pages, as noted in the section on Type of papers. Be sure to indicate the type of paper (research paper, tutorial survey, technical note, and so on).

JOCCH encourages original manuscripts that have not been published anywhere else. A paper previously published in a workshop, symposium or conference can be submitted to JOCCH for consideration if it contains sufficient new material, such as the exploration of effectiveness of novel techniques or technologies applied to digital data in genuine Cultural Heritage applications or the usability of tools or techniques by Cultural Heritage professionals in the field. In some cases papers submitted via this route will be considered on the recommendations of the International Program Committee of related conferences affiliated to ACM or ACM special interest groups.

The ACM Author Representations Policy can be found at: https://www.acm.org/publications/policies/roles-and-responsibilities#authors.

Reviewing Process

The review process is single-blind. A submitted paper will then follow a process before receiving a recommendation for publication in JOCCH:

  1. The information director first checks the submission for completeness and notifies the Editor-in-Chief.

  2. The Editor-in-Chief then determines if the paper is appropriate for consideration by JOCCH and, if so, assigns it to an Associate Editor with the appropriate expertise in the area. In turn, the Associate Editor selects minimum 3 referees or reviewers with expertise both in the technical and the cultural heritage perspectives appropriate to the submission. To facilitate this selection process, it is encouraged to use appropriate keywords to describe the content of the submission.

  3. The referees read the submission and assess it against the criteria for inclusion in the journal including novelty, impact, correctness and relevance to the cultural heritage sector. Each referee returns its review and recommendations on the acceptability of the submission to the Associate Editor; who in turn makes a final recommendation to the Editor-in-Chief.

  4. The Editor-in-Chief, based on the reviews and recommendations, takes a decision on the acceptability of the submission, and communicates to the author this decision along with the referees’ comments.

The decision may take one of four forms:

  1. Acceptance: The submission is accepted as is or subject to minor amendments which do not require an additional full refereeing process. In this case, you will be required to submit your final version, production files and a signed copyright form: http://www.acm.org/publications/copyright_form/

  2. Major/Minor revision: The submission is appropriate but elements of it require a level of improvement which means that an additional full cycle of reviewing will be required. These changes can be minor or major changes according to the referees’ opinion. The revision’s review would normally be undertaken by the original referees unless there were specific needs for additional opinions. In order to achieve timely publication the authors will normally be given a maximum of 30 days (for minor changes) or 45 days (for major changes) to make the required changes and acceptance of the revised submission will need to take into account relevant developments since the original submission.

  3. Reject and resubmit: The submission requires major improvements; hence a new submission is required. It might be the case that the Editor-in-Chief recommends to resubmit according to another type category, so a full restructuring of the paper will be required. This resubmission should be submitted before the specified deadline and should take into account the reviewers comments and any relevant developments since the original submission.

  4. Reject: The paper is rejected on a basis described with the decision. This could include the decision that the submission did not address the scope of the Journal, or that the results described replicated work already published and hence had insufficient originality.

We note that paper may be sent back to the authors for more than one review cycle.

Target Timescales

Our goal is to get accepted submissions out to the community as soon as possible. We strive to complete this process from submission to decision in three months, though some papers can require longer periods to perform the complete and thorough evaluation required.

If at any time during this process we determine your submission is inappropriate for consideration by the JOCCH, we will notify the lead contact immediately so the problem can be fixed or the submission can be sent to a more appropriate venue. This is in the best interest of the author(s) and the timely publication of the submission as it avoids a lengthy review process that would nevertheless result in rejection.

The JOCCH is published electronically in the ACM Digital Library. Accepted submissions are grouped into up to four issues per year. A complete volume will be published on paper, accompanied by other material in appropriate digital format.

Third Party Material

Third Party Material is non-textual in nature - e.g., figures, tables, graphs, photographs, simulations, music or audio/video clips. (Small text quotations borrowed from a third party are placed in quotes and cited.)
It is extremely important that you identify the copyright holder and secure permission to use each and every piece of third party content in your paper or presentation that you, yourself, did not create, be it an image of an M. C. Escher print or a ten-second clip from a movie or a 3D model that you've downloaded from the "AIM@SHAPE" website.
You must deliver to ACM documentation of the permission you receive. Please do not assume that, since you found it on the Internet, it is freely available to be used - chances are it's not.

ACM has published new Fair Use Guidelines for authors whose manuscripts include third-party material. They can be found at http://www.acm.org/publications/guidance-for-authors-on-fair-use.

Flickr and Creative Commons images

If you are using third-party content released for use under Creative Commons (CC) licensing, please be aware that there are various kinds of CC licenses; make sure that the licensing details match your intended use of that content. Of particular note are the "NC" or non-commercial licenses; you may not use material made available with an "NC" Creative Commons license unless you receive specific permission from the author of that content. In all CC licenses, attribution to the creator is required at a minimum, not just the URL where the image is found.

Requesting Permission

When requesting permission, make sure you mention the distribution media ACM will use, e.g., print, online, and recordable media. If the copyright holder restricts you from use in one of ACM's intended publication media, you may not include the material. An event's organizers or an ACM representative can help answer specific questions about distribution media or quantities.
Be advised that obtaining permission to reuse third-party content may take some time, and you may be asked to pay a licensing fee to the copyright holder; ACM does not cover this for you. Even if the owner of the third-party content does not require permission to use their content - material from the Stanford University 3D Scanning Repository, for example - you must still identify it as third-party content on ACM's copyright form, and acknowledge its use, as defined by the owner, in your paper.

Attribution Requirements

ACM requires that you place the ownership attribution of third-party material with the object. If it is a figure or image or model, or similar, you must identify the owner in the caption (example: "Image courtesy David Jones" or "© David Jones"). If the third-party material is some object like a music clip that cannot incorporate an attribution of ownership, then you must identify the owner in your text. (ACM requires this identification so that anyone seeking re-use rights will know whom to contact and so that ACM will not mistakenly grant any re-use rights to third-party material.)
Additionally, the copyright holder may require that a particular acknowledgement be included. If not otherwise stipulated by the copyright holder, this statement of acknowledgement for film or music clips may be placed in the 'Acknowledgements' section of your content.

All author rights forms are now filled electronically through the ACM e-Rights Transfer Application.

The Third-Party Material table in Part III of the ACM Copyright/Release Form is used as follows if you have any third-party material in your paper:

    • "ACM citation reference" is the place in your paper where each piece of third-party content resides: "Figure 1" for example.

    • "Original Third-party source" is where the third-party content was first published.

    • "Approved By" is the name of the person granting you permission to use this content.

    • "Date Received" is the date on which you received permission to use this content.

In addition to completing Part III, you must submit documentation of the permission you've received to use each piece of third-party content when you submit your completed copyright form, regardless of the origin of the third-party material.

Material from ACM

If the third-party content was originally published by ACM and is under ACM's copyright, you will need to select the "Request Permission" link from the ACM Digital Library page for that content and follow the instructions there to secure permission, using "Re-use in an ACM Publication" as the type of usage. The administrative fee will be waived with the application of an event-specific discount code that can be obtained from your Program Chair or the ACM publications Department ([email protected]). The automated permissions system will automatically generate a license documenting your free re-use of this material in a new ACM publication which you should upload with your copyright form.

Material from IEEE

If the third-party content was originally published by IEEE, please visit the following link to learn how to request permission from IEEE to reuse this third-party content: https://www.ieee.org/publications/rights/rights-link.html

Material from Eurographics

If the third-party content was originally published by Eurographics, please send an e-mail to "[email protected]" to request permission to reuse.

Please remember: you must provide us with documentation of the copyright owner's permission that you have received to use each piece of third-party material when you deliver your paper's copyright form, and you must identify the owner of each piece of third-party material in your paper/presentation itself. For any photograph, figure, graphic image of any kind, the owner must be identified in the caption. ACM cannot grant permission for re-use of material on which it does not hold copyright and therefore must be able to identify that owner.

If you cannot obtain permission to use a particular piece of third-party material, it must be removed before final submission.

For more information, please see http://www.acm.org/publications/third-party-material.

Author Gateway

Please be sure to visit the ACM Author Portal for additional important author information.

ORCID Requirements

ACM requires that all accepted journal authors register and provide ACM with valid ORCIDs prior to paper publication. Corresponding authors are responsible for collecting these ORCIDs from co-authors and for providing them to ACM as part of the ACM eRights selection process. For journals using the ScholarOne submission system, the submitting author will be required to provide their own ORCID upon submission. Authors are strongly encouraged, but not required, to include ORCIDs for all authors in their source files.  Please note: ACM only requires you to complete the initial ORCID registration process. However, ACM encourages you to take the additional step to claim ownership of all your published works via the ORCID site.

ORCID provides a persistent digital identifier that distinguishes you from every other researcher through integration in key research workflows such as manuscript and grant submission and supports automated linkages between you and your professional activities - ensuring that your work receives proper recognition. This requirement will also enable ACM to provide improvements to the normalization process of ACM Digital Library author profile data, aid in the detection of undeclared conflicts of interest and other publications-related misconduct in ACM Publications, assist with the implementation of ACM Open, and offer a host of other researcher benefits to ACM authors and the scientific community.

Before submission, the corresponding author should register for an ORCID.  Your co-authors should also create their individual ORCIDs at that time and add them to their accounts in the manuscript submission system. Otherwise, you will need to enter them manually into the ACM rights system upon paper acceptance and before publication in the ACM Digital Library. Simple instructions for complying with this mandate are provided inside the ACM eRights system.

ORCID information for all authors will appear on the article’s page in the ACM Digital Library. If ORCIDs are included in an article’s source files, they will also be linked in the published output.

The ACM ORCID FAQ should answer many of your questions.

ACM Policies

ACM Publications Policy on Research Involving Human Participants and Subjects

As a published ACM author, you and your co-authors are subject to all ACM Publications Policies, including ACM's new Publications Policy on Research Involving Human Participants and Subjects.

ACM Conflict of Interest (COI) Policy

The ACM Conflict of Interest (COI) Policy describes what a COI is, who is responsible for being aware of such conflicts, how to manage COIs, and how to report violations.

ACM Peer Review Policy

ACM recognizes that the quality of a refereed publication rests primarily on the impartial judgment of their volunteer reviewers. Expectations of reviewers and ACM can be found in the Reviewer section of the Policy on Roles and Responsibilities in ACM Publishing page.

Templates

Manuscripts accepted for publication in any ACM publication must be formatted using the ACM authoring template. Submissions must also use the ACM authoring templates. ACM style files will closely approximate the final output, enabling authors to judge the page-length of their published articles.

ACM authoring templates and detailed instructions on formatting can be found at http://www.acm.org/publications/authors/submissions. For both Word and Latex technical support, contact [email protected].

ACM Computing Classification System (CCS)

If your paper has been accepted, please read the HOW TO CLASSIFY WORKS USING ACM'S COMPUTING CLASSIFICATION SYSTEM for instructions on how to classify your document using the CCS and insert the index terms into your LaTeX or Microsoft Word source file. Providing the proper indexing and retrieval information from the CCS provides the reader with quick content reference, facilitating the search for related literature, as well as searches for your work in ACM's Digital Library and on other online resources.

Author Rights

ACM authors can manage their publication rights in either of the following ways:

  • A license granting ACM non-exclusive permission to publish—allowing authors to self-manage all rights to their work by choosing to pay for perpetual open access from the ACM Digital Library.
  • A publishing license agreement granting ACM exclusive publication rights—by granting ACM the right to serve as the exclusive publisher of a work and to manage ongoing rights and permissions associated with the work, including the right to defend it against improper use by third parties. (This license is roughly the equivalent of ACM’s traditional Copyright Transfer Agreement except that the author continues to hold copyright.)

As of January 2023, per decision of the ACM Publications Board, the traditional Copyright Transfer Agreement option is no longer available for ACM authors.  ACM will continue to defend all ACM-published works against improper use when allegations of publication-related misconduct are brought to light.  For more information please refer to this article in The Blue Diamond.

Additionally, ACM authors may post all versions of their work, with the exception of the final published "Version of Record", to non-commercial repositories such as ArXiv. See the ACM Author Rights page for additional information.

Learn more, including about posting to pre-print servers and institutional repositories, by visiting the ACM Author Rights page.

Open Access

ACM has made a commitment to become a fully sustainable and Plan S compliant Open Access (OA) scholarly publisher within approximately five years. ACM offers a number of ways to achieve this goal, including Hybrid OAGold OA, and the ACM OPEN program.

Most ACM journals, with the following exceptions, are Hybrid OA.  ACM Gold OA journals are:

Click here to view the Article Processing Charges (APCs) to publish your article Open Access.

Additionally, all corresponding authors from an institution participating in ACM OPEN will have their research articles published OA at the time of publication at no cost to the authors.  Click here for a list of participating institutions. To ensure eligibility for the program, corresponding authors from participating institutions must use their institutional email address upon submission.

Language Services

ACM has partnered with International Science Editing (ISE) to provide language editing services to ACM authors. ISE offers a comprehensive range of services for authors including standard and premium English language editing, as well as illustration and translation services, and also has significant outreach in China. Editing is available for both Word and LaTeX files. As an ACM author, you will receive a generous discount on ISE editing services. To take advantage of this partnership, visit the Dedicated ACM Editing Service. (Editing services are at author expense and do not guarantee publication of a manuscript.)

Author-izer Service

Once your manuscript is published, this service allows you to generate and post a link on your home page or institutional repository to your published article. This link will let any visitors to your personal bibliography pages download the definitive version of the articles for free from the ACM DL. These downloads will be recorded as part of your DL usage statistics. A detailed description of the service and instructions for its use may be found at the ACM Author-Izer Service page.

LaTeX Collaborative Authoring Tool on Overleaf Platform

ACM has partnered with https://www.overleaf.com/, a free cloud-based, authoring tool, to provide an ACM LaTeX authoring template. Authors can easily invite colleagues to collaborate on their document. Among other features, the platform automatically compiles the document while an author writes, so the author can see what the finished file will look like in real time. Further information can be found at https://www.acm.org/publications/authors/submissions. The ACM LaTeX template on Overleaf platform is available to all ACM authors https://www.overleaf.com/gallery/tagged/acm-official#.WOuOk2e1taQ.

Kudos Article Sharing Platform

Kudos is a free service that you can use to promote your work more effectively. After your paper has been accepted and uploaded to the ACM Digital Library, you'll receive an invitation from Kudos to create an account and add a plain-language description. The Kudos “Shareable PDF” allows you to generate a PDF to upload to websites, such as your homepage, institutional repository, preprint services, and social media. This PDF contains a link to the full-text version of your article in the ACM DL, adding to download and citation counts.

Author Gateway

Please be sure to visit the ACM Author Portal for additional important author information.

Contact Us

For further assistance and questions regarding the journal editorial review process and paper assignment to an issue, contact the journal administrator ([email protected]).