For Authors

Submission Types
Submission Guidelines
Online Submission
Open and Transparent Reviews

Submission Types

The journal invites high-quality submissions on all topics related to the Semantic Web, including the use of semantic technologies in other contexts than the World Wide Web. Submissions can fall in one of the following categories.

• Full papers – containing original research results. Results previously published at conferences or workshops may be submitted as extended versions. These submissions will be reviewed along the usual dimensions for research contributions which include originality, significance of the results, and quality of writing.
• Survey articles – full-length papers surveying the state of the art of topics central to the journal's scope. Authors may want to contact the editors before writing a survey. Survey articles should have the potential to become well-known introductory and overview texts. These submissions will be reviewed along the following dimensions: (1) Suitability as introductory text, targeted at researchers, PhD students, or practitioners, to get started on the covered topic. (2) How comprehensive and how balanced is the presentation and coverage. (3) Readability and clarity of the presentation. (4) Importance of the covered material to the broader Semantic Web community.
• Descriptions of ontologies – short papers describing ontology modeling and creation efforts. The descriptions should be brief and pointed, indicating the design principles, methodologies applied at creation, comparison with other ontologies on the same topic, and pointers to existing applications or use-case experiments. It is strongly encouraged, that the described ontologies are free, open, and accessible on the Web. If this is not possible, then the ontologies have to be made available to the reviewers. For commercial ontologies, exceptions can be arranged through the editors. These submissions will be reviewed along the following dimensions: (1) Quality and relevance of the described ontology (convincing evidence must be provided). (2) Illustration, clarity and readability of the describing paper, which shall convey to the reader the key aspects of the described ontology.
• Application reports – short papers describing deployed applications of Semantic Web technologies. The reports should be brief and pointed, indicating clearly, in what sense and to what extent semantic technologies have been used in the application. These submissions will be reviewed along the following dimensions: (1) Quality, importance, and impact of the described application (convincing evidence must be provided). (2) Clarity and readability of the describing paper, which shall convey to the reader the key ideas regarding the application of Semantic Web technologies in the application.
• Reports on tools and systems – short papers describing mature Semantic Web related tools and systems. These reports should be brief and pointed, indicating clearly the capabilities of the described tool or system. It is strongly encouraged, that the described tools or systems are free, open, and accessible on the Web. If this is not possible, then they have to be made available to the reviewers. For commercial tools and systems, exceptions can be arranged through the editors. These submissions will be reviewed along the following dimensions: (1) Quality, importance, and impact of the described tool or system (convincing evidence must be provided). (2) Clarity, illustration, and readability of the describing paper, which shall convey to the reader both the capabilities and the limitations of the tool.

For alternative types of submissions, please contact the editors.

Submission Guidelines

Authors are requested to submit their manuscript electronically to www.mstracker.com. Note that the manuscript should be uploaded as single PDF file including all tables and figures. If you want to upload a final version of an accepted manuscript please use the same link and upload a Zip file containing all source files as well as the PDF version.

There are no strict guidelines for the formatting of manuscripts for submission. However, authors may choose to adhere to the preparation guidelines for accepted papers (see below). Authors should be aware that their submitted manuscript, together with reviews, will be made publicly available on the under review section.

Manuscripts of papers accepted for publication must be formatted according to the IOS Press templates. Hence, we recommend to use these templates from the very start. LaTex users are kindly requested to use the LaTeX template which at the same time is the preferred document format. MS Office and OpenOffice users may want to select the DOC template.

The SWJ uses an open and transparent review process (see FAQ Q1 and Q2 for details.). Therefore, the solicited reviewers, editors, as well as authors of open reviews are published together with the final submissions. By naming them in the head of the paper, readers can immediately see who reviewed the manuscript as well as who assigned these reviewers and accepted the paper for publication. If your paper has been accepted for publication, please make sure to add this information; see here for details.

Authors submitting a manuscript do so on the understanding that they have read and agreed to the terms of the IOS Press Author Copyright Agreement.

Online Submission

Please submit your manuscript using the online submission system. Please indicate in the cover letter the paper category of your submission, and/or if you are submitting the paper in response to a specific call. Optionally, please indicate an editorial board member whom you would like to handle your manuscript.

If you want to do a resubmission after an "accept with revisions", or if you want to upload a final version (as a .zip file), simply make it a new submission and indicate in the cover letter the title of the paper for which it is a resubmission.