Author Guidelines

Submissions

DISIE publishes original research on digital innovation in special and inclusive education. Submission and peer review are free of charge; an APC of 380 EUR applies only after acceptance, with explicit waiver categories.

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Focus & Scope

Digital Innovation in Special and Inclusive Education (DISIE) is a peer-reviewed, Gold open-access journal on educational research and digital practice. The journal publishes work on how digital technologies, methods, and infrastructures support learners with disabilities, learners with special educational needs, and inclusive educational settings.

DISIE is interdisciplinary. We welcome submissions from special education, rehabilitation pedagogy, educational technology, human-computer interaction, accessibility research, learning sciences, and adjacent fields, including international and comparative perspectives.

Empirical studies, theoretical contributions, structured practice reports, focused short papers, and systematic reviews and meta-analyses are all in scope.

Article formats

ART

Articles

Description:
Original empirical studies with a clearly stated research question, transparent methodology, and a contribution to research or practice.
Length:
35,000-55,000 characters including spaces.
THE

Theory & Conceptual

Description:
Conceptual papers that develop, refine, or critique theoretical frameworks for digital innovation in inclusive and special education.
Length:
30,000-50,000 characters including spaces.
SR&MA

Systematic Reviews & Meta-Analyses

Description:
Systematic reviews, scoping reviews, and meta-analyses with reproducible search, screening, and synthesis protocols.
Length:
Approximately 50,000 characters including spaces, excluding tables and reference list.
SP

Standpoints

Description:
Short, focused contributions, pilot studies, replications, null findings, practice reports, and methodological notes.
Length:
18,000-28,000 characters including spaces.

Before you submit

Languages

English is preferred; German manuscripts are also accepted. An English abstract is required for every submission.

How to prepare your file

  • Submit on review.disie.online. One account covers manuscript upload, typesetting, peer review, and revisions.
  • Citation style: APA 7th edition.
  • Anonymise the PDF for review (toggle inside the typesetter).
  • Accessibility: figures need alt text; tables need header rows.

APC and waivers

Authors of accepted articles are invoiced 380 EUR. The APC is due on acceptance, before galley proof. Submission and peer review are free of charge.

Automatic waivers apply when one of the following categories fits:

  • Research4Life country eligibility: Group A full waiver, Group B 50% waiver.
  • Invited editorial contribution: full waiver.
  • Replication study or registered report pre-registered on OSF or PROSPERO: 50% waiver.
  • Negative or null findings as the manuscript's main contribution: 50% waiver.

How to prepare your submission

Write your manuscript in the DISIE Word template and upload the .docx on review.disie.online. The built-in typesetter walks you through every formatting issue with one-click fixes; once the gate turns green, you submit straight into peer review — same account, same screen.

Download the DISIE Word template Open review.disie.online → Verify a rendered PDF

Step 1 — write in the Word template

The template ships with every DISIE paragraph style pre-configured (visible in Word’s Styles pane) and every required metadata field pre-filled with placeholder text. Replace the placeholders with your content and pick styles from the Styles pane — don’t change font, size or colour from the Home ribbon. A fresh manuscript built on the template passes the validator out of the box.

What the typesetter cannot fix for you

These are the rules to internalise — the typesetter flags missing pieces but cannot create real content for you:

  • Figures: insert via Insert → Pictures at 300 dpi or better, with real alt text via right-click → Edit Alt Text. Never paste a screenshot of a chart, clipboard-paste an image, or use floating shapes / text boxes. For diagrams prefer SVG or PDF over raster.
  • Tables: build with Word’s table tool. Never insert a screenshot of a table. Maximum six columns, no merged cells, no nested tables.
  • Equations: use Word’s equation editor (Insert → Equation). Never insert a screenshot of an equation.
  • Anonymise the review copy: replace the author block and affiliations with placeholders and clear personal metadata via File → Info → Inspect Document. The typesetter offers an anonymise toggle for the rendered PDF, but the .docx body still needs cleaning.

Optional — sidecar files

  • Vector figure source: add a marker to the caption (Figure 1. … [source: Figure_1.svg]) and upload the SVG/PDF alongside the .docx. The typesetter swaps the raster for the vector in the final PDF.
  • CSV for data tables: add a marker (Table 2. … [data: Table_2.csv]) and upload the CSV. Lifts the six-column limit and produces publication-grade rules — use it for tables with many decimal places, long row-level footnotes, or more than 20 rows.

Step 2 — register on review.disie.online and run the typesetter

Create an account at review.disie.online/register (email + password + display name, ORCID optional), drop the .docx on the upload area, optionally attach sidecars (SVG/PDF vector sources, table CSVs), and follow the review screen. Every formatting issue surfaces as a card with a one-click fix — misclassified styles, missing captions, low-resolution figures, forgotten alt text, the lot. When the gate turns green, anonymise toggle on for the review copy and press Render PDF.

Step 3 — submit and track your manuscript

From the render screen, press Submit to DISIE. Desk review, reviewer assignment, decision letters, and revision rounds all happen on review.disie.online — you’ll see live status in your dashboard and get email when something needs your attention. After acceptance, the article is handed off to the production system and appears with its DOI on www.disie.online within minutes.

Required declarations

Every manuscript carries a small block of declarations at the end — funding, ethics, conflicts of interest, data availability, AI use and, optionally, author contributions and acknowledgements. You fill them in via the typesetter’s metadata form, not by typing them into the .docx body. The examples below give you wording to copy or adapt; English and German are both fine.

Funding required

State how the work was funded, or that it received no external funding.

  • EN: “This study received no external funding.”
  • EN: “This work was supported by the Deutsche Forschungsgemeinschaft (grant XYZ-2026-1).”
  • DE: „Die Arbeit wurde durch die Deutsche Forschungsgemeinschaft (Projekt XYZ-2026-1) gefördert.“
Ethics required

State whether ethical approval was required, and if so by which body.

  • EN: “The study was approved by the ethics committee of the University of Cologne (reference 2026-123).”
  • DE: „Die Studie wurde durch die Ethikkommission der Universität zu Köln genehmigt (Az. 2026-123).“
  • EN: “Ethical approval was not required because the study did not involve human or animal participants.”
Conflicts of interest required

Disclose financial or personal relationships that could influence the work, or state that there are none.

  • EN: “The authors declare no competing interests.”
  • DE: „Die Autor:innen erklären, dass keine Interessenkonflikte vorliegen.“
  • EN: “Author A.B. serves on the advisory board of Company X, which produces one of the tools evaluated in this study; no other competing interests are declared.”
Data availability required

State where the data are held and on what terms, or explain why they are not publicly available. DISIE expects honest answers, including “not publicly available because of participant consent” for qualitative work with vulnerable groups.

  • EN: “The data that support the findings of this study are openly available on the Open Science Framework at https://osf.io/example.”
  • DE: „Die Daten sind aufgrund der Einwilligung der Teilnehmenden nicht öffentlich verfügbar. Anonymisierte Daten können auf begründete Anfrage beim korrespondierenden Autor zur Verfügung gestellt werden.“
  • EN: “This is a theoretical contribution; no underlying research data were generated.”
AI use required

State whether and how generative AI was used in preparing the manuscript. AI-assisted writing is allowed; undisclosed use is not.

  • EN: “No generative AI was used in the preparation of this manuscript.”
  • EN: “The authors used Claude (Anthropic) to refine wording in sections 3 and 5. All conceptual content, analyses, and conclusions are the authors’ own.”
  • DE: „Generative KI wurde nicht verwendet.“
Author contributions optional

Optional — describe each author’s contribution. The CRediT taxonomy covers 14 standard roles:

Conceptualization · Methodology · Software · Validation · Formal analysis · Investigation · Resources · Data curation · Writing – Original Draft · Writing – Review & Editing · Visualization · Supervision · Project administration · Funding acquisition

  • EN: “Conceptualization: J.N., A.B.; Methodology: J.N.; Investigation: J.N., A.B.; Writing – Original Draft: J.N.; Writing – Review & Editing: J.N., A.B.; Supervision: A.B.”
  • DE: „Konzeption: J.N., A.B.; Methodik: J.N.; Schreiben – Original Draft: J.N.; Schreiben – Review & Editing: J.N., A.B.“
Acknowledgements optional

Optional — thank colleagues, reviewers, or institutions that supported the work but do not meet authorship criteria.

  • EN: “The authors thank the reviewers for their constructive feedback and the participating schools for their cooperation.”
  • DE: „Die Autor:innen danken den teilnehmenden Schulen für ihre Mitwirkung sowie den Gutachter:innen für ihre wertvollen Hinweise.“

Submission checklist

By submitting to DISIE, the corresponding author confirms on behalf of all authors that:

  • The submission has not been published and is not under consideration elsewhere.
  • The manuscript is anonymised for double-anonymous peer review.
  • All authors have agreed to the submission and author order, and every author has provided an email address.
  • Conflicts of interest and funding sources are disclosed.
  • Ethics-board approval or a justified exemption is reported where required.
  • A data availability statement is included.
  • Any non-trivial use of AI tools is disclosed in line with the journal policy.
  • The submission follows the COPE Core Practices.