Special Issue: Resources

Resources play an essential role in various aspects of Computer Science research. In the context of Graph Data & Knowledge, such resources may include benchmarks, datasets, engines, frameworks, interfaces, knowledge graphs, languages, ontologies, pre-trained models, software libraries, standards, tools, user logs, web applications and services, etc. Unfortunately, despite the advances that such resources enable, the work invested into creating and maintaining them is often undervalued in a research setting.

In this Call for Resource Papers, we solicit submission of journal articles that describe in detail a resource relevant to research on Graph Data & Knowledge per the topics described in TGDK’s Call for Papers. Specifically, we solicit articles describing two types of resources:

• Mature resources that have already enjoyed significant adoption by third parties (not sharing an affiliation with those involved in creating or maintaining the resource). Such adoption may be in, for example, the context of research, industry or a specific user community. Conversely, it is not necessary for submissions to present a novel research contribution (e.g., to explore a novel hypothesis, to present novel experiments, to prove a novel theorem, etc.).
• Emerging resources that have only recently been made available, but that provide novel scientific results. An example of such a resource could be, for example, a bespoke benchmark that gains novel insights into the performance of state-of-the-art tools on a specific task. The scientific contribution of the emerging resource must be made explicit, and the associated results presented in a manner enabling reproducibility.

We require that the articles submitted to this Call be written primarily by those involved in the creation and/or maintenance of the resource described. We further require—unless otherwise strongly justified by the submission, e.g., for ethical or legal reasons—that the resource be made available on the Web following best practices prior to submission, that it be linked from the submission, and that it be made available for third-party research works under an open license.

Submission

In order to ensure that a resource is suitable for publication under this Call, the Editors-in-Chief of TGDK will provide a lightweight pre-check service for all resources prior to submission based on a brief description. If the resource is deemed relevant, the EiCs will invite the authors to submit their article, which will then undergo a thorough peer-review process. If not deemed relevant, we hope to have saved the authors time preparing a full submission on an out-of-scope resource. The pre-check description should be no more than 500 words, should be emailed to the TGDK Editors-in-Chief (contact@tgdk.org) prior to a full submission with the subject “TGDK Resource Pre-Check Service”, and should contain:

• The name of the resource
• Whether it is a mature or emerging resource
• A brief description of the resource that also clarifies its relevance to research on Graph Data & Knowledge
• Where it can be accessed and under what conditions
• The authors of the proposed submission, and their contributions to the resource
• For mature resources: up to five key instances where the resource has been used by third parties (in the context, for example, of research, industry, or a user community)
• For emerging resources: a description of the scientific results derived using the resource, as will be detailed in the submission
• Pointers to previous publications about the resource, if any, and the expected novel aspects to be described in the new publication

If the resource is deemed relevant, the Editors-in-Chief will instruct the authors on how to submit.

Content

Though there are no fixed upper or lower page limits, we expect submissions to this Call to be in the range of 10–20 pages using TGDK’s single column LaTeX template (see Author Instructions). We expect submissions to describe (at least) the rationale behind the creation of the resource, a technical description of the resource, the relevance to Graph Data & Knowledge, key statistics or other metadata underlying the resource and its adoption, how the resource is made available (including location, licensing, best practices adopted, etc.), how the sustainability of the resource is assured (for example, in terms of how it is published, how often it is updated, the community supporting it), an assessment of the limitations of the resource, and future directions for the resource. Descriptions of mature resources must also include a survey of how the resource is being used by third-parties. Descriptions of emerging resources must also describe novel scientific results gained through the use of the resource. Additional material to help validate the novelty, value or quality of the resource is also welcome, including experiments, theorems, etc.

In case the resource has been described in a previous publication, we expect the submission to cite this previous publication, and to clearly indicate the advances made since that prior publication as described by the current submission. Pre-prints with informal publication (e.g., on arXiv) do not count as a previous publication; in other words, we welcome submissions based on articles that have only been informally published as pre-prints. We do not accept submissions that are under review elsewhere.

Review Criteria

Submissions will undergo a standard peer review process, but will be subject to distinctive criteria, as follows:

• Novelty: The submission must describe a novel resource that adds value over other available resources; if a previous submission has been published about the resource, we expect the submission to describe substantial novel features.
• Relevance: The topic of the submission must be relevant to TGDK's research scope, as described in the Call for Papers.
• Clarity: The submission must be well-written, understandable, self-contained, accessible and contain all of the details required by this Call.
• Technical soundness: The submission must be technically sound, and the resource described must be technically sound.
• Impact: The submission must describe a resource that has generated substantial impact. In the case of mature resources, impact is measured through the adoption and use of the resource by third parties, as described in the article. In the case of emerging resources, impact is measured by the scientific insights that it provides, as described in the article.
• Resource: Reviewers will be asked to look over the resource itself: to ensure that it is available, well-documented, technically sound, licensed, sustainable, of high quality, follows best practices, conforms to what is described in the submission, etc.

Timeline

• Pre-Checks: June 3, 2024
• Submissions: June 20 July 1, 2024
• Author Notifications: August 31, 2024
• Revisions: September 30, 2024
• Author Notifications: October 31, 2024
• Publication: Q4 2024

We encourage authors to perform the pre-check with the Editors-in-Chief as soon as possible, and potentially much earlier than the deadline of June 3.

Publication

As a Diamond Open Access journal, official versions of accepted TGDK articles (as accessible via DOI) are published by Dagstuhl Publishing and made available for free online without fees for authors nor readers. Dagstuhl Publishing also provides means to publish resources, which can be used by authors to ensure the long-term sustainability and archiving of their work. Upon acceptance of the publication, we may request additional metadata about the resource from the authors (contributors, web location, documentation, version info, licensing, etc.).

Editors

This Special Issue will be edited by the Editors-in-Chief of TGDK.