Journal profile · SOCIAL SCIENCES, INTERDISCIPLINARY
Big Data & Society
ISSN 2053-9517 · SAGE Publishing · United States
Big Data & Society: CAS Zone 1 · Sociology (2025 upgraded edition, Top journal); impact factor 7.6; fully open access; APC about USD 2,000; review about 313 days (submission to acceptance, publisher); acceptance rate 14.8% (journal website); 136 articles in 2025; indexed in SSCI and Scopus.
Scope
Aims, scope and focus
Big Data & Society is published by SAGE Publishing and is in Zone 1 of Sociology in the CAS Journal Ranking (2025 upgraded edition, Top journal). By OpenAlex counts of its recent articles, its largest topics are Ethics and Social Impacts of AI, Privacy, Security, and Data Protection and Social Media and Politics, together about 38.6% of its articles. Its main subfields are Sociology and Political Science. (generated from OpenAlex topic counts and CAS ranking data)
Big Data & Society (BD&S) is an open access, peer-reviewed scholarly journal that publishes interdisciplinary work principally in the social sciences, humanities and computing and their intersections with the arts and natural sciences about the implications of Big Data for societies.The Journal's key purpose is to provide a space for connecting debates about the emerging field of Big Data practices and how they are reconfiguring academic, social, industry, business and government relations, expertise, methods, concepts and knowledge. BD&S moves beyond usual notions of Big Data and treats it as an emerging field of practices that is not defined by but generative of (sometimes) novel data qualities such as high volume and granularity and complex analytics such as data linking and mining. It thus attends to digital content generated through online and offline practices in social, commercial, scientific, and government domains. This includes, for instance, content generated on the Internet through social media and search engines but also that which is generated in closed networks (commercial or government transactions) and open networks such as digital archives, open government and crowdsourced data. Critically, rather than settling on a definition the Journal makes this an object of interdisciplinary inquiries and debates explored through studies of a variety of topics and themes.BD&S seeks contributions that analyse Big Data practices and/or involve empirical engagements and experiments with innovative methods while also reflecting on the consequences for how societies are represented (epistemologies), realised (ontologies) and governed (politics).This journal is a member of the Committee on Publication Ethics (COPE).Article processing charge (APC)The article processing charge (APC) for this journal is $2400. Commentaries are charged an APC of $1920.The article processing charge (APC) is payable when a manuscript is accepted after peer review, before it is published. The APC is subject to taxes where applicable. Please see further details here.Authors who do not have funding for open access publishing can request a waiver from the publisher, SAGE, once their Original Research Article is accepted after peer review. For all other content (Commentaries, Editorials, Demos) and Original Research Articles commissioned by the Editor the APC will be waived. Digital EnhancementsBig Data & Society is a digital-only journal and its platform accommodates a variety of multimedia to present complex images and dynamic visualisations and video and audio content. It is more than simply the mere transposition of a paper version as it is published on a platform that attends to the presentational issues that Big Data analyses demand (e.g., visualisation, multimedia, interactivity, code) and the challenges that digitisation presents for the future of scientific publishing (e.g., scholarly standards, protocols and scrutiny). While still adhering to limits in article length, we encourage authors to use rich media and multiple visualisations and, when possible, to include links to data sources in the body of their article. We avoid the use of supplementary files and instead embed all components (figures, tables, video, and any additional data files) in the article whenever possible. We also use the power of open access to make our content as widely available as possible. We have designed a platform that allows for simple and clean presentation of a variety of content. The initial platform launched in 2014 has gone through several changes and we continue to make improvements to the design and presentation of content. Journal SectionsWhile peer reviewed original research articles are the Journal's core content, we also publish a variety of other content to advance research on and communication about Big Data practices: Peer reviewed original research articles. The core content of the Journal is double blind, triple peer reviewed original research article
From the journal's Aims & Scope
Research area (LetPub): SOCIAL SCIENCES, INTERDISCIPLINARY
Editor-in-chief Matt ZookPublisher website
Editorial board by country: 1 in mainland China (about 1%); most named United States 18, United Kingdom 13, Canada 5, Netherlands 5, Germany 4 (70 members with a country) Editorial board ↗Publisher website ·
Main research topics OpenAlex counts of recent articles; shares are approximate
- Ethics and Social Impacts of AISocial Sciences23.3%
- Privacy, Security, and Data ProtectionSocial Sciences9.4%
- Social Media and PoliticsSocial Sciences6%
- Digital Economy and Work TransformationSocial Sciences5.8%
- Misinformation and Its ImpactsSocial Sciences4%
- COVID-19 Digital Contact TracingComputer Science3.9%
- Computational and Text Analysis MethodsSocial Sciences3.7%
- Ethics in Clinical ResearchMedicine3.3%
Rankings & indexing
CAS ranking and database indexing
CAS Journal Ranking
CAS Journal Ranking, upgraded edition (March 2025)Sociology Zone 1
| Level | Category | Zone |
|---|---|---|
| Major | Sociology | Zone 1 |
| Minor | Social Sciences, Interdisciplinary | Zone 1 |
Top journal: yesReview journal: no
CAS Xinrui Journal Ranking (March 2026)Sociology Zone 1
| Level | Category | Zone |
|---|---|---|
| Major | Sociology | Zone 1 |
| Minor | Social Sciences, Interdisciplinary | Zone 1 |
Top journal: yesReview journal: not marked
CAS Journal Ranking, previous upgraded edition (December 2023)Sociology Zone 1
| Level | Category | Zone |
|---|---|---|
| Major | Sociology | Zone 1 |
| Minor | Social Sciences, Interdisciplinary | Zone 1 |
Top journal: yesReview journal: no
Database indexing
SSCIScopusDOAJLetPub
International journal early-warning lists: not listed in any editionLetPub
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
- Impact factor
- 7.6LetPub ·
- Impact factor (publisher)
- 7.8Publisher website ·
- 5-year impact factor (publisher)
- 10Publisher website ·
- CiteScore 2026-06
- 9.7LetPub ·
- SJR 2026-06
- 2.03LetPub ·
- SNIP 2026-06
- 2.54LetPub ·
- h-index
- 108OpenAlex ·
- i10-index
- 648OpenAlex ·
- 2-year mean citedness
- 7.02OpenAlex ·
- Self-citation rate
- 14.1%LetPub ·
- Share of gold OA articles
- 100%LetPub ·
Volume
- Articles per year
- 118LetPub ·
Articles by year OpenAlex count · 1,045 in total · the current year is incomplete
| Year | Articles | Open access | Citations |
|---|---|---|---|
| 2026 | 126 | 126 | 72 |
| 2025 | 136 | 136 | 708 |
| 2024 | 108 | 108 | 1,816 |
| 2023 | 121 | 121 | 3,046 |
| 2022 | 93 | 93 | 2,903 |
| 2021 | 106 | 106 | 5,881 |
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
Publisher-reported review time from the journal's website
313 dayssubmission to acceptance · community reports about 11 weeks
The publisher's own definition applies; dates from this journal's articles in the last 24 months are not available yet, so the publisher's figure is used.
Figures by source
- Average review time (community reports)
- about 11 weeksLetPub ·
- Acceptance rate (publisher)
- 14.8%Publisher website ·
- Submission to first decision
- 6 daysPublisher website ·
- Submission to acceptance
- 313 daysPublisher website ·
- Acceptance to publication
- 31 daysPublisher website ·
- Submission to publication (journal-reported)
- about 11 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
Fully open accessDOAJ
Every article is open access; authors usually pay an article processing charge (APC).
| Source | APC | Fee waiver | License | Observed |
|---|---|---|---|---|
| DOAJ | USD 2,000 | Yes | CC BY, CC BY-NC, CC BY-NC-ND | |
| OpenAlex | USD 2,000 | — | — | |
| LetPub | USD 2,000 | Yes | — | |
| Publisher website | USD 2,400 / USD 1,920 | — | — |
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)
What to prepare5 items from the author guidelines
- Abstract
- ≤ 250 words
- Manuscript length
- ≤ 10,000 words
- Reference style
- Harvard
- First submission
- Free format: the journal's layout is not required
- Suggested reviewers
- Optional
Article types accepted10, with length limits
- blogs and video abstractsBlogs and Video Abstracts. Authors of articles and commentaries are invited to write short blogs and produce 3-5 minute videos about their contributions.Length not stated
- commentariesCommentaries. Short submissions (up to 3000 words) on issues, controversies, and questions that are timely and novel such as emerging theories, topics, and meth…Length not stated
- commentaryView our Special Collections currently accepting submissions. While peer reviewed original research articles are the Journal's core content, we also publish a v…Length not stated
- demosDemos. Annual multi-media demonstrations curated by the Journal Editorial Team of new methods, visualizations, experiments and approaches to the analysis of Big…Length not stated
- editorialView our Special Collections currently accepting submissions. While peer reviewed original research articles are the Journal's core content, we also publish a v…Length not stated
- editorialsEditorials. Written by Guest Editors of the annual special theme to provide an overview of the contributions.Length not stated
- essays and provocationsEssays and Provocations. Dedicated to short essays and provocations on topics relevant to the study of Big Data practices.Length not stated
- original research articleView our Special Collections currently accepting submissions. While peer reviewed original research articles are the Journal's core content, we also publish a v…main text ≤ 10,000 words
- peer reviewed original research articlesPeer reviewed original research articles. The core content of the Journal is double blind, triple peer reviewed original research articles of up to 10,000 words…Length not stated
- special themesSpecial Themes. Collections of articles and commentaries on a focused discussion of a specific topic related to Big Data. An annual call for proposals is made e…Length not stated
Policy excerpts from the journal's websiteAuthorship, Data availability, Publication ethics, Open access, Peer review, Plagiarism, Preprints
- Authorship Author contributions
You will be asked to list the contribution of each author as part of the submission process. Please include the Author Contributions heading within your submission after the Acknowledgements section. The information you give on submission will then show under the Author Contributions heading later at the proofing stage.
Source ↗Publisher website ·- Data availability Data availability
The Journal is committed to facilitating openness, transparency and reproducibility of research, and has the following research data sharing policy. For more information, including FAQs please visit the Sage Research Data policy pages. Subject to appropriate ethical and legal considerations, authors are encouraged to: Share your research data in a relevant public data repository Include a data ava…
Source ↗Publisher website ·- Publication ethics Ethical considerations
Member of Committee on Publication Ethics Model summary
Please include your ethics approval statements under this heading, even if you have already included ethics approval information in your methods section. If ethical approval was not required, you need to explicitly state this. All papers reporting studies involving human participants, human data or human tissue must state that the relevant Ethics Committee or Institutional Review Board approved th…
Source ↗Publisher website ·- Open access Publishing fees and open access
Big Data & Society is an open access, peer-reviewed journal. All accepted articles are made freely available online immediately upon publication, are published under a Creative Commons license, and hosted online in perpetuity. If, after peer review, your manuscript is accepted for publication, a one-time article processing charge (APC) is payable to cover the cost of publishing, paid by the funder…
Source ↗Publisher website ·- Peer review Peer review policy
Double anonymized peer review Model summary
The following summary describes the peer review process for this journal: Identity transparency: Double-anonymized Reviewer interacts with: Editor Review information published: None Your manuscript will undergo an initial evaluation. If it does not conform to the requirements laid out in these guidelines, it will be returned to you for amendments prior to peer review. Manuscripts may be desk rejec…
Source ↗Publisher website ·- Plagiarism Plagiarism
The journal and Sage take issues of copyright infringement, plagiarism or other breaches of best practice in publication very seriously. Please read Sage's complete policy on plagiarism and the actions we may take.
Source ↗Publisher website ·- Preprints Preprints
The journal will consider submissions of manuscripts that have been posted on preprint servers. Please enter the preprint DOI in the designated field when submitting your manuscript. We advise that you inform the Journal Editorial office about your posted preprint at submission. Note that you should not post an updated version of your manuscript on a preprint server while it is being peer reviewed…
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
- SAGE Publishing
- Country or region
- United States
- Language
- English
- ISSN
- 2053-9517
- Official links
- Journal homepage ↗OpenAlex
- Submission system ↗Publisher website
- Author guidelines ↗LetPub
- Aims & Scope ↗LetPub
- Special issues ↗Publisher website
- APC information ↗DOAJ
- Fee waivers ↗DOAJ
- Open access statement ↗DOAJ
- License & copyright ↗DOAJ
- Peer review process ↗LetPub
- Editorial board ↗LetPub
- Plagiarism policy ↗DOAJ
FAQ
Frequently asked questions about Big Data & Society
What CAS zone is Big Data & Society in?
In the 2025 upgraded edition of the CAS Journal Ranking, Big Data & Society is in Zone 1 of Sociology, and in Zone 1 of the minor category Social Sciences, Interdisciplinary; it is a Top journal. In the 2026 Xinrui edition it is in Zone 1 of Sociology. Zones from different editions, and from major and minor categories, are not interchangeable.
What is the impact factor of Big Data & Society?
The latest impact factor listed by LetPub is 7.6; CiteScore 9.7, h-index 108.
How long does peer review take at Big Data & Society?
The publisher reports about 313 days (submission to acceptance); authors report an average review time of about 11 weeks; the journal's website gives an acceptance rate of 14.8%. 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.
What are the manuscript requirements of Big Data & Society?
According to the journal's author guidelines: Abstract: ≤ 250 words; Manuscript length: ≤ 10,000 words; Reference style: Harvard; First submission: Free format: the journal's layout is not required; Suggested reviewers: Optional. A model extracted these from the author guidelines and each was checked against the text; check the latest version on the journal's website before submitting.
Where are the editorial board members of Big Data & Society based?
Of the 70 board members whose country the journal's board page names, 1 (about 1%) are in mainland China; the countries named most often are United States (18), United Kingdom (13) and Canada (5). Counted from the institutions listed on the board page; for reference only.
Which databases index Big Data & Society?
According to LetPub and DOAJ records, Big Data & Society is indexed in SSCI, Scopus and DOAJ.
Is Big Data & Society open access, and what is the APC?
Big Data & Society is a fully open-access journal. APC about USD 2,000.
Sources and updates
The facts on this page come from LetPub, Publisher website, OpenAlex, DOAJ; 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 2026-08-25). Last updated: .