About the Journal

Focus and Scope

This journal seeks to advance the field of human computation by coalescing related work from across disciplines and reporting important scientific results from academia, industry, and government.

The topical scope of this journal includes:

  • Foundations - introduction of new HC ideas or approaches based upon existing disciplines or interdisciplinary cross-pollination
  • Applications - novel or transformative applications of HC
  • Interfaces - HCI or related human factors methods or issues pertaining to HC
  • Modalities - general interaction paradigms for HC (e.g., gaming) and related methods
  • Techniques - repeatable methods for HC analogous to design patterns for OOP
  • Algorithms - specific algorithms that are used in the implementation of HC, including wisdom of the crowd (aggregation), workflows (task routing), reputation, crowdsourced analysis, as well as hybrid machine learning/HC algorithms.
  • Architecture - emerging work in HC development platforms, including architectures, programming languages, middleware [with HC APIs], integrated development environments, and compilers
  • Infrastructure - technical infrastructure needed to support HC, including networks, communication protocols, state space, and supportive services
  • Participation - empirical results concerning factors that influence human participation in HC activities, including implications and application of motivational psychology, economics, and successful game-theoretic techniques such as mechanism design
  • Analysis - techniques for extracting information from HC data, assessing its quality, and measuring HC system performance
  • Epistemology - the role, source, representation, and construction of information and knowledge in HC systems
  • Policy - ethical, regulatory, and economic considerations relevant to the emergence and growing prevalence of HC, including HC labor markets
  • Security - security issues in HC, including surreptitious behavior to influence HC system outcomes
  • Society - the societal, cultural, evolutionary, existential, psychological, and social impact of HC
  • Organization and Taxonomies - organization of this evolving field, including its concepts, terminology, problem spaces, algorithms, and methods
  • Surveys - state of the art assessments of various facets of HC
  • Other meta-topics - the future, philosophy, charter, and purpose of HC, including insightful commentary and debate

Anticipated content by article type:

  • Research articles - report new findings, methods, and frameworks
  • Meta-issues - secondary effects: implications, policy, governance, ethics
  • Field surveys - state of the art, taxonomic or interdisciplinary analysis
  • Dialog - point/counterpoint on technical or policy topics

This journal implements exacting standards, strict but unbiased peer review, adherence to scientific philosophy, and a relentless emphasis on encouraging and embracing interdisciplinary contributions.

Peer Review Process

The Editor-in-Chief makes an initial appraisal of each manuscript. If the topic and treatment seem potentially appropriate for the journal, the manuscript is assigned to an associate (or subject-matter) editor who oversees the review process. Once the review process has been completed, the associate editor recommends acceptance, revision, or rejection of your manuscript. The final decision is made by the Editor-in-Chief.

Human Computation has a "double blind" review process: authors are not told who reviewed their paper and reviewers are not told who wrote the paper. Peer reviewers are informed of the identity of the authors after the manuscript is either accepted or rejected. After a decision is reached, a reviewer is free to contact the authors privately about the manuscript.

A decision on the manuscript generally may be expected within 2 months of submission; delays in obtaining reviews may prolong this process. Manuscripts are sent out for review electronically, and all correspondence takes place via e-mail. Although the peer review process is accelerated by the use of electronic communication, traditional high-quality, peer-review standards are applied to all manuscripts submitted to Human Computation.

Publication Frequency

Human Computation will be organized into quarterly volumes.  However, articles accepted by Human Computation will be published as soon as they are ready, appearing in the current volume's Table of Contents.

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.

Journal History

The journal Human Computation was formed in August 2013 to address the need for a professional communication medium for members of the multidisciplinary community of human computation researchers and industry practitioners.