Ten Years of Studies in Digital Heritage

Abstract

This editorial marks the tenth anniversary of Studies in Digital Heritage (SDH) and reviews its origins, editorial model, and development. SDH was founded in 2016 by Bernard Frischer and Gabriele Guidi after their departure from Digital Applications in Archaeology and Cultural Heritage, the Elsevier journal they had directed together. Two considerations drove the decision: the impossibility of adopting a three-dimensional visualization system capable of handling the complexity of heritage models, and the incompatibility of Elsevier's Article Processing Charge with the budgets of many researchers in the humanities and of those outside well-funded projects. SDH was conceived as a fully open access journal with no author charges, sustained by Indiana University's ScholarWorks infrastructure and by the voluntary work of an editorial board that provides three peer reviews per submission alongside copyediting and layout editing. The journal is indexed in DOAJ and Scopus, and allows authors to publish 3D models with their articles; a transition is under way from Sketchfab toward an open source visualization system giving greater control over model storage and rights. The editorial also reports on growth and on weaknesses still to be addressed. Annual submissions have risen from 13 in 2020 to 44 in 2025, with roughly 65 projected for 2026, while the rejection rate has increased from 32% across 2020–2023 to 66% over 2024–2025. Review times remain a concern: although the average time to decision has almost halved since 2020, it still stands at 246 days. Recent measures include the appointment of two additional Associate Editors, which has reduced the time to a rejection decision from 592 days in 2020 to 79 in 2026; the adoption, from this issue, of an open issue publication model intended to mitigate delays; and the introduction of Chicago author–date citation style. The editorial closes with an invitation to prospective reviewers to register on the SDH portal.