Focus and Scope

Studies in Digital Heritage is a peer-reviewed online journal that publishes innovative research on new technological solutions for digital heritage applications, as well as applications of existing digital technologies in cultural heritage fields — including anthropology, archaeology, art history, architectural history, classics, conservation science, Egyptology, history, and museology — where the innovation lies in the humanities discipline but is achieved through a technological approach.

While the journal covers a broad range of topics related to technology in cultural heritage studies, it places particular emphasis on 3D technologies. This includes 3D data capture, processing, and restoration, as well as the use of 3D models in research, education, and digital dissemination. The journal also explores best practices for metadata and paradata in 3D modeling, and the integration of 3D models into VR, AR, and web-based platforms.

Accordingly, where appropriate, authors are encouraged to embed interactive 3D models in their articles in place of traditional 2D illustrations. Submitted 3D models undergo peer review alongside the accompanying text and are evaluated according to their intended purpose and scholarly contribution.

Occasionally the journal publishes special issues on focused topics, including proceedings of conferences in the field of digital heritage.

The research leading to the creation of this journal was generously supported by the National Science Foundation (grant no. IIS-1014956; see also the related article by D. Koller, B. Frischer, and G. Humphreys, "Research Challenges for Digital Archives of 3D Cultural Heritage Models," Journal on Computing and Cultural Heritage 2, no. 3 (2009): article 7, 1–17).

Peer Review Process

All work submitted for consideration by the journal is normally subject to independent peer review by experts in the appropriate field(s), who may include members of the editorial board.

SDH uses single-blind peer review: the authors do not know the identity of the reviewers, while the reviewers can see the names of the authors. This is the most common form of peer review among scientific journals. It does not require authors to remove names, citations, or grant references from the submitted version of the article, although they may do so if they wish.

Reviewers are chosen in consultation with members of the editorial board. Authors are also asked to recommend at least three potential reviewers and to indicate the names of anyone who should not be approached because of a potential conflict of interest. Metadata/paradata forms and 3D models are reviewed by the appropriate expert member of the journal's editorial board.

Each reviewer is asked to recommend whether the submission should be published as submitted, published after specified revisions, or rejected. These recommendations are advisory and may be modified by the editors. Reviewers consider the following criteria:

1. The work makes an original contribution beyond what has already appeared in the published literature. As a corollary, it does not duplicate the author's own previous publications on the same topic.
2. The work will be of importance to SDH readers and to scholars in disciplines related to digital heritage, in both the humanities and ICT.
3. The research questions are clearly defined and appropriately answered.
4. The overall design of the study is appropriate and adequate to answer the research questions.
5. The methods are adequately described and the main outcome measures are clear.
6. The results are credible, well presented, and answer the research questions.
7. The interpretation and conclusions are warranted by, sufficiently derived from, and focused on the data, and are placed in the context of previous evidence.
8. The references are up to date and relevant, with no glaring omissions and no improper self-citation.
9. The abstract, summary, keywords, and stated contribution to the field accurately reflect the full text of the paper.
10. 3D models, videos, and other supporting assets have been produced to a professional standard and are accompanied by appropriate metadata (descriptive, technical, and administrative).

Publication Frequency

Studies in Digital Heritage publishes two issues per year.

Open Access Policy

This journal provides immediate open access to its content, on the principle that making research freely available to the public supports a greater global exchange of knowledge.

Every article published in SDH is freely available on the public internet. Users may read, download, copy, distribute, print, search, or link to the full texts of these articles, crawl them for indexing, pass them as data to software, or use them for any other lawful purpose, without financial, legal, or technical barriers other than those inseparable from gaining access to the internet itself, provided that such use is non-commercial.

Copyright remains with the author, subject to SDH's non-exclusive license and the rights granted by the Creative Commons Attribution-NonCommercial 4.0 International License (CC BY-NC 4.0). Download SDH's full author agreement.

Publication Expenses for Authors

Thanks to the generous support of Indiana University and the sponsorship of the Virtual World Heritage Laboratory, the journal charges no article submission fee and no article processing charge (APC).

Plagiarism Policy

To guarantee originality, SDH actively checks for plagiarism and self-plagiarism before accepting a submission. At the end of the review process, the editor responsible for the paper screens the article with Turnitin before sending the acceptance letter. This allows SDH to identify passages that may have been reproduced without permission from works already published elsewhere, and to take this into account in the final decision. As a rule, a lengthy passage of duplicated text (excluding, of course, the bibliography) is considered unacceptable and results in the rejection of the paper.

Journal History

Bernard Frischer and his co-editor-in-chief, Gabriele Guidi (then at Politecnico di Milano), served as editors-in-chief of Digital Applications in Archaeology and Cultural Heritage (DAACH), published by Elsevier, from the journal's inception until 30 September 2016. They resigned after reaching an impasse with Elsevier over three critical issues: (1) Elsevier would not reduce the fee of $3,000 per article to a level that scholars in the field could afford; (2) Elsevier refused to implement a modern 3D viewer (such as, at the time, Sketchfab or 3DHOP) to display the 3D models associated with the articles published in the journal; and (3) Elsevier insisted on changing the name of the journal and reducing its independence. Frischer and Guidi therefore decided to start afresh with a new open access journal that would remedy the shortcomings of DAACH.