Focus and Scope
The Journal of Human-Technology Relations (JHTR) is a peer-reviewed diamond open access journal with no article processing charges and no publishing fees. All research papers are double-anonymous peer-reviewed. We welcome high-quality submissions from all disciplines relevant to the study of human-technology relations, regardless of the approach or school of thought from which they originate. JHTR welcomes both theoretical and empirical analyses of human-technology relations, as long as they contribute to a better understanding of the character, structure, and implications of the relations between humans, technologies, and societies.
Technologies have come to play a central role in human lives and societies. They help to shape how humans are born and die, learn and live, behave and are being treated, work and relax, have families and friendships, have power and are overpowered, build societies and engage in politics. Studying human-technology relations, therefore, requires a wide range of academic disciplines and subdisciplines in the humanities and the social sciences. To this end, with a basis in Philosophy of Technology and in Science and Technology Studies, JHTR welcomes contributions on human-technology relations from a wide variety of disciplines, ranging from Design Research to Human-Computer Interaction, from Ethics to Metaphysics, and from Political Theory to Responsible Research and Innovation, and Artistic Research. The composition of the editorial team reflects the variety of approaches from which human-technology relations can be investigated.
Article types
- editorials: brief article as an introduction to each edition of the journal, written either by the editorial board or by guest editors (maximum 5,000 words);
- current affairs:short articles discussing topical issues and developments in technology and/or society with a clear link to human-technology relations, in the form of a news item, column, or any other brief format (maximum 2,000 words);
- research articles: articles (including pictorials) presenting the results of original research (maximum 10,000 words);
- response articles: brief articles that discuss and comment on articles published previously (maximum 2,000 words);
- student essays: articles that discuss the results of successful and innovative research done by Bachelor and Master students (maximum 5,000 words);
- reviews: articles reviewing books, exhibitions, or performances related to human-technology relations (maximum 2,000 words)
- book review: articles in which up to four commentators critically discuss a recent and/or influential book, potentially with a reply by the author (maximum 10,000 words);
All word limits exclude references and endnotes.
Please refer to the submissions page for a full description of the review policy and process per submission type.
Topical Collections
Scholars within or outside of the editorial team may submit a topical collection proposal to the Editors-in-Chief.
Proposals should include: a list of the Guest Editors and affiliations; a description of the scope and focus of the topical collection, and a prospective timetable. The Editors-in-Chief review the proposal and decide on acceptance/rejection.
JHTR requires an agreement between the Guest Editor(s) and the Editors-in-Chief, where the Guest Editor(s)’ role is clearly defined. Guest Editors are subject to the same rules as editors of JHTR and adhere to TU Delft OPEN Publishing policies.
Browse through our collection.
Guest Editors
JHTR requires an agreement between the Guest Editor and the Editor-in-Chief where the Guest Editor’s role is clearly defined. Guest Editors are subject to the same rules as Editors and adhere to TU Delft OPEN Publishing policies.
Guest Editors can be appointed by the Editorial Board. They have the same role as Editors for papers submitted to the Thematic Series they lead. They are aided by a more experienced Editor from the Editorial Board who will ensure the quality and uniformity of the publishing process.
Frequency of Publication
JHTR follows the Continuous Publication Model, meaning the journal publishes an article as soon as it is accepted and ready. JHTR compiles all articles published within a given year into one volume.
Open Access, Licensing and Artificial Intelligence
Diamond Open Access
Our journal follows the Diamond Open Access model. All content is freely accessible to readers, and authors are not charged publication fees. The journal is supported through institutional resources and is committed to equitable and sustainable scholarly communication.
More information here.
Open Access Policy
The journal is licensed under a Creative Commons Attribution 4.0 International (CC BY 4.0 license. CC BY 4.0 allows broad reuse of published works, including copying, sharing, adaptation, and redistribution, provided appropriate attribution is given to the original author(s). Anyone is free to share or remix under the following conditions:
- The original authors must be given credit.
- For any reuse or distribution, it must be made clear to others what the license terms of this work are.
- Any of these conditions can be waived if the copyright holders give permission.
- Nothing in this license impairs or restricts the author's moral rights.
Licensing and Artificial Intelligence
Authors should be aware that publication under a CC BY 4.0 license may permit reuse of published content for text and data mining, machine learning, and artificial intelligence (AI) applications, subject to applicable law and license requirements.
CC BY 4.0 governs copyright permissions for published works. However, copyright licences do not, by themselves, address all ethical, governance, transparency, consent, attribution, reciprocity, or data sovereignty considerations associated with the use of scholarly content in AI systems.
TUDOP recognizes that questions concerning transparency, consent, attribution, reciprocity, and data sovereignty may extend beyond the scope of copyright licensing alone. Authors, readers, reviewers, editors, users, and technology providers are therefore expected to act in accordance with principles of responsible scholarship, research integrity, and respect for intellectual contributions.
Article Processing Charges
Publishing in the journal is completely free of charge. Neither Submission Charges nor Article Processing Charges (APCs) are required from authors. The resources required to operate the journal are supported by the institutions with which the editors and associate editors are affiliated, primarily through staff time and editorial contributions.
Copyright Policy
- Authors retain their copyrights.
- If you use published images, text or other materials, please be aware of copyright regulations. The TU Delft Copyright helpdesk can provide further information and answer your copyright questions.
- In case of (alleged or proven) copyright breaches or scientific misconduct (e.g. fabrication of data), ALDJ will follow the guidelines developed by the Committee on Publication Ethics (COPE)
Questions relating to the use of published content in AI systems are addressed in the section “Open Access, Licensing and Artificial Intelligence”
Peer-Review policy
JHTR is committed to a transparent review process that adheres to the COPE policy. Editors and reviewers are encouraged to join COPE individually and have agreed to declare any conflicts of interest.
JHTR follows a double-anonymous peer-review process (reviewer and author identities are not visible to each other) for all research articles to ensure academic rigour and impartiality. Submissions are evaluated by independent reviewers based on scholarly quality, originality, and relevance. Editorials, Current Affairs, and Response Articles are openly reviewed by the editorial team for clarity, relevance, and factual accuracy. The peer-review process is managed by independent and external experts selected based on their expertise in the field. The reviewers interact exclusively with/via the assigned Editor. (Learn more about peer review terminology).
Editors are not involved in the review or decision-making process for their own submissions.
How the review is conducted
Submissions to JHTR are first subject to an internal scan for relevance and coherence by the Editors-in-Chief. When it is decided that the article fits the scope of the journal, the Managing Editor assigns it to a responsible Associate Editor, who will send it out for double-anonymous peer review by a minimum of two external Reviewers.
Based on the Reviewers' recommendations, the Associate Editor(s) will decide on acceptance, minor revisions, major revisions or rejection for publication.
In case of minor or major revisions, Authors are expected to submit a revised version of the manuscript together with a detailed description of the changes made and a response to the reviewers' comments. This document should outline in detail how each of the comments was addressed in the revised manuscript or should provide a rebuttal to the criticism. Revised submissions may be re-sent to Reviewers. The Associate Editor and the Editors-in-Chief will decide about final approval of the revised manuscript.
After acceptance the manuscript will be send to a Copy Editor to provide English-language text editing service. The Author will receive an e-mail with a link to the editorial system to proofread the copyedited version and to submit the final version.
Finally, the copyedited version of the manuscript will be sent to the Layout Editor, who will prepare galleys ('proofs'). At this stage, the Author can only correct minor mistakes, if necessary. If the Author approves, the final version of the manuscript will be published online.
AI and Large Language Models in Peer Review
The journal recognizes that Artificial Intelligence (AI) and Large Language Models (LLMs) may support scholarly workflows.
The use of such tools during peer review must not compromise confidentiality, reviewer accountability, editorial independence, research integrity, or the rights of the authors. AI systems cannot serve as reviewers, editors, or decision-makers.
Reviewers and editors remain fully responsible for all assessments, recommendations, decisions, and communications produced during the peer-review process.
Manuscripts, review reports, editorial correspondence, and other peer-review materials must not be submitted to external AI or LLM systems without explicit journal authorization.
Open access publication, preprint status, or participation in open review does not in itself constitute permission to submit peer-review materials to external AI systems.
For detailed requirements regarding the use of AI and LLMs during peer review, reviewers should consult the Reviewer Guidelines.
Research Data and Software
By publishing with TU Delft OPEN Publishing, authors must ensure that any research software and research data underlying their submitted and accepted manuscripts follow the FAIR (Findable, Accessible, Interoperable, Reusable) principles.
TU Delft OPEN Publishing requirements:
- a data access statement,
- data and software sharing (unless restricted by legal, ethical, contractual, privacy, security, or intellectual property considerations)
- data and software citation, and
- data and software registration in a recognised repository in line with the TU Delft Research Data Framework Policy.
Authors should ensure that any use of AI tools in the generation, analysis, interpretation, documentation or management of research data and software is disclosed where appropriate and complies with applicable ethical, legal, and disciplinary standards.
Please visit this page for more information on policies.
Publication Ethics
TU Delft OPEN Publishing, as part of TU Delft, follows the TU Delft Code of Conduct and Integrity Policy. Authors, reviewers, editors, and other contributors are expected to follow those principles during the submission, review, publication and post-publication process.
Integrity Policy
TU Delft OPEN Publishing follows the Integrity Policy of TU Delft which sees to ethics and integrity. According to the TU Delft Integrity Statement in the TU Delft Code of Conduct all people involved in research, teaching and innovation at TU Delft, must maintain the highest standards of academic integrity. This means that all must act upon the leading principles and the standards of the Netherlands Code of Conduct for Research Integrity. Non-compliance with these standards (may) lead to measures and sanctions. The TU Delft Committee on Research Integrity (CWI) assesses complaints on alleged violations of these research integrity standards and advises the Executive Board (CvB) in this respect: a provisional opinion by the CvB on alleged research misconduct may eventually lead to a publication retraction, a ban from TU Delft OPEN Publishing and a report to affiliated institutions. For queries: integrity@tudelft.nl When submitting your work to TU Delft OPEN Publishing it must meet the following requirements in case it sees to human research objects, medical care or device, or animals. According to the TU Delft Regulations on Human Trials (2016), approval for human research is mandatory for all research involving data obtained from human research objects, and is provided by the Human Research Ethics Committee (HREC). If you conduct an experiment which involves medical care or device, you must seek approval form a certified medical ethics committee. For queries: hrec@tudelft.nl For experiments involving animals, please contact: ivd@tudelft.nl
Similarity Check and Editorial Screening
To support research integrity and publication ethics, submissions may be screened using similarity-detection and editorial assessment tools.
TU Delft OPEN Publishing may use AI-assisted editorial screening tools to support similarity checking and editorial quality assurance. Such tools assist, but do not replace, human editorial judgement.
Any findings generated by these tools are reviewed by editors and are not used as the sole basis for editorial decisions.
Use of AI
The use of AI technologies for writing and summarising is becoming increasingly popular. When used responsibly in research, i.e. where ideas, interpretations and conclusions are clearly human-generated, it can facilitate innovation.
However, authors and editors remain fully responsible and accountable for the quality and content of the manuscripts. In line with the COPE Position Statement of 13 February 2023, authors must not list AI tools as co-authors, as these tools cannot take responsibility for the submitted work. They must also be transparent about how the AI tool was used and which tool was used (e.g. ChatGPT and other generative language-based AI tools for image generation) in the writing of their manuscripts, and this information must be included in the materials and methods section of the manuscript.
In order to maintain integrity and transparency, and to preserve trust in the scholarly record, authors must disclose any use of generative AI technologies (e.g. ChatGPT, image generators, code assistants) that contributed to the manuscript. This disclosure should be included in the 'Use of AI' section and in the cover letter submitted before the review process. This policy is subject to review based on new developments, including the COPE Position Statement. Read more >>>
Authorship
All co-authors must agree to submit the work to the journal. The corresponding author shall primarily discuss the involvement of fellow authors. ALDJ communicates with all authors to check their agreement to be involved. The contributions of the various contributing authors are given in a final section of the paper following the CRediT system. See the site of TU Delft OPEN Publishing for details.
All co-authors must agree to submit the work to the journal. For authors’ disputes, see the “Complaints and Appeals” section.
How to add extra authors before publication:
- All co-authors must agree to add new (co)authors to the publication
- Agreement must be collected and sent to the editor with an explanation
Conflict Of Interest
Anyone (editors, reviewers, authors and any other relevant parties) involved in the publishing process should disclose any potential conflicts of interest they may have
- Evaluation: After disclosing the potential COI, it will be examined by the editorial board to determine how important it is and its possible impact on the publication process.
- Management: An identified COI requires appropriate steps. Those steps may include stepping back from certain duties or decisions, removal from the publication process, or taking other actions to reduce the conflict.
- Transparency: Any identified conflicts of interest should be transparently disclosed to relevant parties, including readers, authors, and reviewers.
- COI can be mentioned after the Acknowledgement section of the publication
Knowledge Security
The journal supports responsible research and international collaboration. Authors, reviewers, and editors are expected to comply with applicable knowledge security requirements and to consider potential risks associated with the dissemination of sensitive knowledge, technology, or data.
For detailed information, please consult the TU Delft OPEN Publishing Knowledge Security Policy.
Complaints and Appeal
Complaints:
Complaints such as misconduct, authorship disputes, or suspected conflicts of interest can be addressed to the publisher (publishing-lib@tudelft.nl) or the editorial board.
Author Appeal:
Appeals to an editorial decision can be brought by a corresponding author to the editorial board by contacting the (vice) editor-in-chief of the journal. The editorial board will decide on the appeal by majority vote (without the editor who made the decision). Their appeal decisions are final.
Publication Notice and Changes
Any changes made to the published content will be accompanied by a post-publication notice, which will be permanently linked to the original content. Publication notices include errors introduced by the journal (erratum) and by the author (corrigendum); the addition of a (small) document to a published work to provide additional information (addendum); and retraction.
Preferably, the Editor who handled the paper handles publication notices through the following steps (if that editor is not available, another editor or the publisher can also be appointed):
- Reviewing the proposed changes to the published content to determine if they are necessary and appropriate.
- Preparing a post-publication notice that accurately reflects the changes made to the content.
- Linking the post-publication notice to the original content in a clear and prominent manner.
- Distributing the updated content and the post-publication notice to relevant parties, including subscribers, indexers, and other databases.
- Monitoring the impact of the changes on the academic record and making any necessary further updates or corrections.
Code of conduct
ALDJ and TU Delft OPEN Publishing adhere to the TU Delft code of conduct and integrity policy.
Metadata
JHTR grants you the right to publish the metadata of the series, its issues, and articles under the terms of the Creative Commons CC0 1.0 Universal (CC0 1.0).
Indexing
JHTR with 2773-2266 is indexed by the Directory of Open Access Journals (DOAJ), the Directory of Open Access Scholarly Resources (ROAD), The Keepers, Google Scholar, WorldCat, and ERIH Plus.
Archiving
JHTR utilizes the LOCKSS system to create a distributed archiving system among participating libraries and permits those libraries to create permanent archives of the Journal for purposes of preservation and restoration.
Authors are allowed to deposit a Submitted version, an Accepted version (Author Accepted Manuscript), and a Published version (Version of record) of their work in an institutional or any other repository of their choice.
TU Delft OPEN Publishing is committed to the permanent availability and preservation of scholarly research. We work in partnership with organizations and maintain our own digital archive.
Disclaimer
The opinions expressed in our published content are those of the author(s) and do not reflect the views and opinions of TU Delft OPEN Publishing.
The responsibility of the content provided is exclusively of the author(s) concerned. TU Delft OPEN Publishing, JHTR, the editors, and reviewers are not responsible for errors in the contents or any consequences arising from the use of information contained in it.
The opinions expressed in the publications of JHTR do not necessarily represent the views of TU Delft OPEN Publishing and the editors.
We follow an open access publishing principle, in which author(s) are the sole owners of the copyright of the content published. For any omissions, copyright violations only author(s) of the concerned article are responsible. Our responsibility is limited only to the removal of the concerned article from JHTR once the query is raised.
Images
Header and cover images made by Buro ten Dam
Sponsoring
JHTR was originally financially and organizationally supported by the University of Twente
ISSN
2773-2266 (online)
Publisher