About

JOCCH solicits paper submissions with interdisciplinary research that combines computer science innovations with real attention to addressing challenges in the cultural heritage domain. The Cultural Heritage domain spans many distinct sub-disciplines including:

    Tangible heritage, including material culture, archaeology, built heritage, museum collections, archives, and libraries.
    Intangible heritage, such as music, crafts, performance, dance, festivals, storytelling, and mythology.

Interdisciplinary research in this area includes novel technologies, tools, and approaches for the discovery, conservation, documentation, interpretation and communication of Cultural Heritage. These innovations are mostly underpinned by the wider availability of digitization devices (e.g. photographic cameras, 3D scanners, advanced imaging devices), digital infrastructures, including large scale computing, digital workflows and Artificial Intelligence frameworks, as well as enhanced digital skills amongst practitioners in Cultural Heritage institutions.
JOCCH Topics

Of special interest to the journals are papers focusing on the following major areas. Within these areas, topics include but are not limited to the following: 
Infrastructures, Repositories, and Data Management

Innovations in architectures, techniques, tools and workflows that underpin the management of Cultural Heritage data including its acquisition, storage, sharing, linking, preservation and disposal/removal. 

Topics might include:

    2D/3D/4D media for CH
    Metadata, classification schema, ontologies and semantic processing
    Long term preservation
    Provenance, copyright and IPR
    Data spaces for cultural heritage
    Environmental impact of infrastructures

Data Analytics and Artificial Intelligence

Innovations in techniques, methods, tools and workflows that enable the aggregation and analysis of cultural heritage data, including large-scale datasets, across different modalities including text, media and spatial data. Where AI is deployed, explainability is important so authors should provide an in-depth analysis of the model's characteristics bringing scientific value to the proposal beyond performance measures.. Papers also need to demonstrate the impact these models have on Cultural Heritage practices (e.g. interpretation, conservation) and their potential effect on economic displacement in heritage institutions. Topics might include:

    Analytic tools and methods
    Intelligent assistance in monitoring and restoration
    Simulation and spatial analysis
    Digital twins

Systems Design and Human-Computer Interaction

Innovations in methodologies and processes for designing systems, interfaces as well as experiences to underpin cultural heritage processes, as well as to assess their effectiveness. Topics might include:

    Human-Computer interfaces
    Interactive/immersive experiences
    Co-designing
    Citizen science
    Design UX / UI
    Evaluation

Graphics and Visualization Technologies

Innovations in techniques, methods, tools and workflows that enable the documentation, preservation, interpretation, as well as engagement with graphical representations of visual and material culture. Topics might include:

    Digital capture (inc. shape and appearance), representation and manipulation
    Tools for reconstruction and processing of digital representations
    On-site and remotely sensed data collection
    Mass digitization
    Rendering
    Virtual, Augmented, Mixed, Extended  Reality
    Serious games

Sound and Music Computing

Innovations in techniques, methods, tools and workflows that underpin documenting, exploring, preserving and experiencing the intangible aspect of sound, including the heritage of musical practices. Topics might include:

    Preservation and restoration of analog recordings and musical instruments
    Long-term preservation of audio archives (music and speech)
    Analyzing, accessing and re-using audio documents
    Computational Musicology
    Music Information Retrieval
    Archaeoacoustics

Computational Linguistics

Innovations in techniques, methods, tools and workflows that underpin documenting, analyzing and interpreting literary works and texts within cultural heritage collections and archives. Topics might include:

    Natural language processing
    Translation
    Text analysis

Special Issue on Visual Heritage
Submission Date: 2026-03-01

Guest Editors

    Ruggero Pintus, CRS4, email: ruggero@crs4.it
    Carles Bosch, UVic-UCC, email: bosch@uvic.cat
    Carla Schroer, Cultural Heritage Imaging, email: carla@c-h-i.org

Context

This special issue is a collaboration with the Eurographics Workshop on Graphics and Cultural Heritage, which brings together scientists and practitioners working on interdisciplinary challenges related to Cultural Heritage by researching visual technologies, including AI, Computer Vision, Computer Graphics, Visualization and HCI design.

This special issue welcomes contributions from authors planning to attend the event in the autumn of 2026 in Barcelona (November 2nd-4th), while offering the opportunity to publish their research in the Journal on Computing and Cultural Heritage.

The focus of the special issue is on novel computing research for documenting, accessing and researching cultural heritage, including areas of computer graphics, computer vision, artificial intelligence, visualization, human-computer interfaces, and other visual technologies. The research should highlight the innovation these developments bring to cultural heritage research, analysis, preservation, simulation, documentation, dissemination, and promotion. Inter-disciplinary and multi-disciplinary approaches are particularly welcomed.

We welcome submissions from both researchers as practitioners, as well as from researchers at various levels of their careers, including early career researchers.

Topics

    Digitization of CH assets, inc. advanced techniques (3D scanning, motion capture, multispectral imaging, X-ray, terahertz imaging, etc.)
    FAIR visual CH data, including large-scale datasets
    Multi-modal analysis of CH
    Artificial Intelligence-driven approaches
    Visualization for Cultural Heritage
    Collaborative environments for research and access
    Spatial and mobile augmentation of CH
    Digital fabrication, including 3D printing for tangible interfaces
    Community-participatory approaches for CH valorization and interpretation
    Management, data-ethics, and environmental considerations for CH datasets

Important Dates

    Paper Submission: March 1, 2026
    Notification (1st Cycle): May 12, 2026
    Revised Paper Submission: June 21, 2026
    Notification (2nd Cycle): July 21, 2026
    Revised Paper Submission: August 30, 2026
    Final Decision: September 19, 2026
    GCH Camera Ready version: October 1, 2026. Papers accepted to JOCCH are automatically accepted to GCH. Authors of these papers must submit a 4-page camera-ready version for the proceedings and present their work onsite at the event. For papers accepted to GCH only (not JOCCH), authors must submit a 10-page camera-ready version for the proceedings and present their paper onsite at the event.
    Publication: December 8, 2026

Submission Instructions

Please follow the guidelines for specific instructions on the submission format. Submissions will be done through the ACM JOCCH submission system.

There is no maximum number of pages, and you should use the least number of pages necessary to adequately describe your results and place them in context. This is typically done in less than 20 pages.

For questions and further information, please contact the Guest Editors Ruggero Pintus (ruggero@crs4.it) and Carles Bosch (carles.bosch@uvic.cat).

As of January 1, 2026, ACM will become a fully Open Access Publisher. ACM believes a sustainable Open Access future best serves the global computing community. Open Access will enable ACM authors to gain a competitive edge in visibility, impact, and global reach. Papers with authors affiliated with an institution participating in the ACM Open program or those who are granted geographic waivers will be able to publish their articles OA at no charge. For other papers, an article processing charge (APC) will apply. For more information, please visit JOCCH’s Open Access page.