About JOAD

The Journal of Open Archaeology Data (JOAD) features peer reviewed data papers describing archaeology datasets with high reuse potential. We are working with a number of specialist and institutional data repositories to ensure that the associated data are professionally archived, preserved, and openly available. Equally importantly, the data and the papers are citable, and reuse will be tracked. While still in beta phase, the journal is now accepting papers. We will also be adding new functionality over the next few weeks, and refining the look and feel.

Why publish data?

Focus and scope

JOAD publishes data papers, which do not contain research results but rather a concise description of a dataset, and where to find it. Papers will only be accepted for datasets that authors agree to make freely available in a public repository. This means that they have been deposited in a data repository under an open licence (such as a Creative Commons Zero licence), and are therefore freely available to anyone with an internet connection, anywhere in the world.

A data paper is a publication that is designed to make other researchers aware of data that is of potential use to them. As such it describes the methods used to create the dataset, its structure, its reuse potential, and a link to its location in a repository. It is important to note that a data paper does not replace a research article, but rather complements it. When mentioning the data behind a study, a research paper should reference the data paper for further details. The data paper similarly should contain references to any research papers associated with the dataset.

Any kind of archaeological data is acceptable, including for example: geophysical data; quantitative or qualitative data; images; notebooks; excavation data, software, etc.

Acceptable repositories

JOAD will accept papers only for datasets that are made openly available by being deposited in a suitable repository. See our recommended repositories list for more information.

Peer review process

JOAD data papers are fully peer reviewed to ensure that they are accurate and that the datasets they describe meet the journal’s criteria. The datasets themselves are not reviewed in terms of validity or importance. See our peer review criteria page for more information.

Submissions

Information on the submissions process can be found on the Submit a Data Paper page.

Publishing platform

JOAD is part of the Ubiquity Press metajournals platform, which incorporates a customised version of the Annotum open-source scholarly authoring and publishing software.

Contact us

Please feel free to send a message to joad.editor@ubiquitypress.com if you’d like to know more.