Journal profile
Archipelagos
ISSN 2689-842X · Columbia University Libraries · United States
Archipelagos: diamond open access (no APC); no APC; review about 36 weeks (community reports).
Scope
Aims, scope and focus
Archipelagos is published by Columbia University Libraries. By OpenAlex counts of its recent articles, its largest topics are Digital Humanities and Scholarship, Caribbean history, culture, and politics and Digital and Traditional Archives Management, together about 41.7% of its articles. (generated from OpenAlex topic counts and CAS ranking data)
The transformation of the academy by the digital dispensation presents challenges to customary ways of learning, teaching, conducting research, interpreting documents, and presenting findings. It also offers immense opportunities in each of these areas. New media enable oration, graphics, objects, and even embodied performance to supplement existing forms of scholarly production as well as to constitute entirely original platforms. Opportunities for interdisciplinary collaboration have expanded enormously, information has been made more accessible, and research made more efficient on multiple levels. We scholars are called upon now, with some urgency, to adapt our investigative and pedagogical methods to an academic climate deluged by a superabundance of information and analysis. This has created opportunities for open-ended and multiform engagements, interactive and continually updating archives, databases, cartographic applications that enrich the geographic imagination with historical information, and online dialogues with our colleagues and the wider public. The need for such engagements is especially immediate among the people of the Caribbean and its diasporas. Information technology has become an increasingly significant part of the way that those in the region frame pressing social problems and political aspirations. Moreover, the Internet is analogous in important ways to the Caribbean itself as a dynamic and fluid cultural space: it is generated from disparate places and by disparate peoples; it challenges fundamentally the geographical and physical barriers that disrupt or disallow connection; and it places others and elsewheres in relentless relation. Yet while we celebrate these opportunities for connectedness, we also must make certain that our work in the digital realm undermines and confronts rather than re-inscribes forms of silencing and exclusion in the Caribbean. Our own impetus for creating a new platform arose from this continued need to raise the voices of those working to understand the impact of technology on our scholarly and cultural pursuits. At this very hybrid moment, caught between the analog and the electronic, systems of production, validation, and distribution of our scholarly and cultural work have reified to benefit large monopolies—indexers, database brokers, software vendors—whose ultimate motive is profit. In order to keep these large economic sectors thriving, access has been regimented. As Caribbeanist scholars, we find ourselves in the double-bind of a new master's house, both infrastructurally and historically. Stewards of an archive that cannot be disentangled from The Archive housed at major global institutions—whose mechanical image lies outside our control—and of our fragile, opaque archives in their saltpetered warehouses at the margins, we have committed to join those who are active in the design of our future memory. As the academy increasingly embraces the "digital turn," we ask the following: How might we, as editors, publishers, and ourselves Caribbeanist scholars, encourage and facilitate our colleagues' investment in the production and dissemination of the knowledge they generate? How will we go about cultivating both producers and reviewers of quality digital scholarship, and how will we help to ensure that this scholarship is recognized and rewarded by the profession? How might we encourage collaboration with, increase accessibility for, and otherwise work to narrow the gap between Caribbeanist researchers, especially those in the North Atlantic academy, and the communities we are committed to serving? To answer these and other urgent questions, we need in this moment to engage two critical functions: to understand and to build. For us, these functions do not follow one from the other, but rather operate in tandem. As such, we have thought through our platform with the same critical eye we cast on the archive, and our resulting infrastructure embodies our principles. We
From the journal's Aims & Scope
Editor-in-chief David ScottPublisher website
Editorial board by country: none in mainland China; most named United States 1, France 1, Australia 1 (3 members with a country) Editorial board ↗Publisher website ·
Main research topics OpenAlex counts of recent articles; shares are approximate
- Digital Humanities and ScholarshipArts and Humanities14.6%
- Caribbean history, culture, and politicsSocial Sciences14.6%
- Digital and Traditional Archives ManagementArts and Humanities12.5%
- Caribbean and African Literature and CultureArts and Humanities6.3%
- Anthropological Studies and InsightsSocial Sciences4.2%
- Postcolonial and Cultural Literary StudiesArts and Humanities4.2%
- Fashion and Cultural TextilesArts and Humanities4.2%
- Library Science and InformationComputer Science4.2%
Rankings & indexing
CAS ranking and database indexing
CAS Journal Ranking
CAS Journal Ranking, upgraded edition (March 2025)Not covered
Not covered by this edition.
CAS Xinrui Journal Ranking (March 2026)Not covered
Not covered by this edition.
CAS Journal Ranking, previous upgraded edition (December 2023)Not covered
Not covered by this edition.
Database indexing
DOAJLetPub
International journal early-warning lists: not listed in any editionLetPub
Indexing the journal's website claims
LOCKSS, Eli ScholarPublisher website
As the journal's website lists them, not checked against each database; for Web of Science editions the records above apply.
Editions, and major and minor categories, are shown separately and never merged into one zone; check which edition your institution uses before you submit or report.
Metrics
Impact metrics and publication volume
Impact
- h-index
- 0OpenAlex ·
- i10-index
- 0OpenAlex ·
- 2-year mean citedness
- 0OpenAlex ·
- Share of gold OA articles
- 0%LetPub ·
Articles by year OpenAlex count · 16 in total · the current year is incomplete
| Year | Articles | Open access | Citations |
|---|---|---|---|
| 2026 | 12 | 12 | 0 |
| 2023 | 3 | 3 | 0 |
| 2022 | 1 | 1 | 0 |
Sources count differently and were observed at different times, so each source's own value is kept; "publisher" marks figures from the journal's website.
Review & acceptance
Review time and acceptance
- Average review time (community reports)
- about 36 weeksLetPub ·
- Submission to publication (journal-reported)
- about 36 weeksDOAJ ·
- Peer review
- Double anonymous peer reviewDOAJ
Community reports come from authors' own submissions (confidence 0.5) and are not a promise from the journal; for publisher figures, the journal's own definitions apply.
Fees & open access
APC and open-access policy
Diamond open access (no APC)DOAJ
Every article is open access and authors pay no article processing charge.
| Source | APC | Fee waiver | License | Observed |
|---|---|---|---|---|
| DOAJ | No APC | No | CC BY | |
| LetPub | No APC | No | — | |
| Publisher website | No APC | — | — |
The journal's website is authoritative for fees; sources were observed at different times and each keeps its own value, without averaging.
Submission
Article types and submission policies (journal website)
Article types accepted6
- critical essaysCritical Essays are 6000–8000-word articles that showcase groundbreaking, argument-based reflections on the theory, methods, and practices of digital scholarshi…Length not stated
- digital project dialoguesDialogues comprise synthesized critical exchanges in prose between the authors and reviewers of a publicly available, typically mid-stage digital project.Length not stated
- digital project reviewsarchipelagos responds to this challenge with three distinct dimensions of critical production: scholarly essays; digital scholarship projects; and digital proje…Length not stated
- digital scholarship projectsarchipelagos responds to this challenge with three distinct dimensions of critical production: scholarly essays; digital scholarship projects; and digital proje…Length not stated
- process essaysProcess Essays are 4000–6000-word articles that showcase work related to the theory, methods, and practices of digital project construction.Length not stated
- scholarly essaysarchipelagos responds to this challenge with three distinct dimensions of critical production: scholarly essays; digital scholarship projects; and digital proje…Length not stated
Policy excerpts from the journal's websiteLicense & copyright, Open access, Peer review
- License & copyright
Creative Commons Attribution 4.0 International License Model summary
This work is licensed under a Creative Commons Attribution 4.0 International License.
Source ↗Publisher website ·- Open access Open Access
Open access Model summary
archipelagos is an open access journal, which means that all content is freely available without charge to users or institutions. Users are allowed to read, download, copy, distribute, print, search, or link to the full texts of the articles in this journal without asking prior permission from the publishers. We do not charge article processing nor article submission charges to authors. Authors re…
Source ↗Publisher website ·- Peer review Review Process
Peer review Model summary
Authors submit a guideline-compliant essay. Reviewers evaluate and offer initial feedback within five weeks of receiving the essay, answering the questions outlined below and then sending feedback to the journal editors (archipelagosjournal@gmail.com). Editors read reviewer feedback and notify both authors and reviewers of the final publication decision. If accepted for publication, but with minor…
Source ↗Publisher website ·
Excerpts are quoted from the journal's website; "model summary" lines are written by Workers AI and checked against the text. The journal's website is authoritative.
Profile
Publication details and official links
- Publisher
- Columbia University Libraries
- Country or region
- United States
- Language
- English, French, Spanish
- ISSN
- 2689-842X
- Official links
- Journal homepage ↗LetPub
- Author guidelines ↗LetPub
- Aims & Scope ↗LetPub
- Special issues ↗Publisher website
- APC information ↗DOAJ
- Open access statement ↗DOAJ
- License & copyright ↗DOAJ
- Peer review process ↗LetPub
- Editorial board ↗LetPub
FAQ
Frequently asked questions about Archipelagos
How long does peer review take at Archipelagos?
Authors report an average review time of about 36 weeks. Article statistics cover accepted papers only, publisher figures follow the journal's own definitions, and community reports come from authors' own submissions; none is a promise from the journal.
Where are the editorial board members of Archipelagos based?
Of the 3 board members whose country the journal's board page names, none are in mainland China; the countries named most often are United States (1), France (1) and Australia (1). Counted from the institutions listed on the board page; for reference only.
Which databases index Archipelagos?
According to LetPub and DOAJ records, Archipelagos is indexed in DOAJ.
Is Archipelagos open access, and what is the APC?
Archipelagos is a diamond open-access journal (no APC). It charges no article processing charge.
Sources and updates
The facts on this page come from LetPub, OpenAlex, DOAJ, Publisher website; every figure is tagged with its source and the date it was observed, and conflicting values are kept per source. LetPub source page: view ↗ (archived 2026-08-26). Last updated: .