[CfP] TGDK Special Issue: Semantic Digital Humanities

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Transactions on Graph Data & Knowledge (TGDK)

https://www.dagstuhl.de/tgdk

Special Issue: Semantic Digital Humanities

https://www.dagstuhl.de/en/institute/news/2026/tgdk-cfp-special-issue-semantic-digital-humanities

Submissions due: January 31st, 2027
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Cultural Heritage (CH) and Digital Humanities (DH) research is 
characterized by interpretative plurality, evolving vocabularies, highly 
contextual knowledge, and diverse source materials. Supporting the 
analysis, integration, and interpretation of this complex data requires 
structured, machine-understandable representations and advanced 
computational methods. Semantic Web technologies, e.g., ontologies and 
knowledge graphs, together with generative Artificial Intelligence (AI) 
models, offer powerful means to represent and explore cultural 
knowledge, while also raising new methodological and epistemological 
challenges.

This special issue aims to advance research at the intersection of 
Semantic Web technologies, AI, and Digital Humanities by bringing 
together conceptual, methodological, and technical contributions.

== Scope ==

This special issue welcomes research, resource and survey contributions 
on the following topics:

Conceptual and Theoretical Foundations
* Philosophical and theoretical perspectives on Semantic Web 
technologies in DH and CH
* Formal semantics and modeling of ambiguity, uncertainty, and 
interpretative plurality
* Ontological commitments and epistemological considerations in DH modeling
* Governance and standardization processes in DH and CH communities
* The role of AI and LLMs in knowledge representation and interpretation 
in DH and CH

Ontology Engineering and Standards in DH
* Ontology design methodologies tailored to DH and CH contexts
* Application and extension of foundational ontologies (e.g., BFO, UFO)
* Use and evaluation of domain standards such as CIDOC CRM, FRBR, LIDO, 
TEI, and MEI
* Alignment and harmonization of heterogeneous metadata and schema standards
* Evaluation metrics, validation techniques, and quality assessment for 
DH ontologies and KGs
* AI-assisted ontology/KG engineering and alignment

Infrastructures and Interoperability
* Architectures for DH knowledge graph infrastructures
* Interoperability and cross-domain data integration strategies
* FAIR and CARE principles for cultural heritage data
* Provenance modeling, temporal representations, and trust
* Access control, sustainability, and long-term preservation of semantic 
infrastructures

Knowledge Graph Construction, Exploration, and Enrichment
* Methods and workflows for constructing and maintaining DH and CH 
knowledge graphs
* NLP and information extraction from textual and multimodal sources
* Entity linking, ontology learning, and semantic annotation
* Crowdsourcing and collaborative knowledge graph curation
* Use of Large Language Models (LLMs) and AI for KG construction, 
querying, and exploration
* Critical assessment of AI methods in DH contexts (e.g., bias, 
reliability, interpretability)

== Guest Editors ==

* Tabea Tietz, FIZ Karlsruhe and Karlsruhe Institute of Technology (KIT)
* Sasha Bruns, FIZ Karlsruhe and Karlsruhe Institute of Technology (KIT)
* Arianna Graciotti, University of Bologna
* Bruno Sartini, y.digital, Netherlands
* Lise Stork, University of Amsterdam

== Timeline ==

* Submissions: January 31, 2027
* Author Notifications: April 31, 2027
* Revisions: May 31, 2027
* Author Notifications: July 31, 2027
* Publication: Q3/Q4, 2027

== Submission ==

Please follow the the submission instructions for TGDK and select the 
corresponding Special Issue:

     https://drops.dagstuhl.de/entities/journal/TGDK#author

As a Diamond Open Access journal, official versions of accepted papers 
(as accessible via DOI) are published and made available for free online 
*without fees for authors or readers*.

== Contact ==

For inquiries, please contact the guest editors: 
tgdk-semdh-si@googlegroups.com

Received on Friday, 17 April 2026 17:59:46 UTC