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.

Start Submission Download Call for Papers
DISIE Call for Papers cover

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 submission, peer review, and revisions.
  • Citation style: APA 7th edition.
  • One file: a manuscript with no author names in it. Names, affiliations and declarations are entered on the submission form, and DISIE builds the article’s title page from them.
  • 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

Four steps on review.disie.online: article details, files, a check-up, send. The form saves as you type, so you can stop and come back.

Download the DISIE Word template Start a submission →

What to have ready

  • One file. The manuscript, with no author names in it, is what reviewers read. There is no separate title page to write: the form asks for the names, affiliations and declarations, and the article’s title page is built from them. Citing your own earlier work in the reference list is fine and expected; naming yourself in the running text is what gives you away.
  • An email address for every author. That is how DISIE creates their account, so they can be credited on the published article and read the reviews.
  • Abstract, keywords and declarations: funding, ethics, competing interests, data availability, AI use. Wording to copy is below.

Figures and tables can also go up as separate files at full resolution; the editor typesets from those rather than from what survived being embedded in Word. Supplementary material is published with the article, so give those files names that make sense to a reader.

Writing in Word

The DISIE template ships with every paragraph style pre-configured. Using it is not a condition of submitting. But three things cannot be reconstructed later, whatever you write in:

  • Figures: Insert → Pictures at 300 dpi or better, with real alt text. Not screenshots, not floating text boxes. SVG or PDF for diagrams.
  • Tables: Word’s table tool, not a picture of one. There is no column limit: an evidence table of ten or twelve columns typesets fine, and merged cells for spanner headings are welcome. Only a table nested inside another table cannot be laid out.
  • Equations: Word’s equation editor.

The check-up

Before you send, DISIE reads the manuscript and reports what it noticed: structure, figures, tables, references, and anything that would tell a reviewer who you are. You can open a PDF with every finding marked in the margin.

None of it blocks the submission. It has to run once and you confirm you have read it; what you fix is your decision, and the editor sees the same report.

Required declarations

Filled in on the submission form, not typed into the .docx. 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.”
Competing interests 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:

  • It has not been published and is not under consideration elsewhere.
  • All authors have agreed to the submission and the author order.
  • The declarations are complete and accurate: funding, competing interests, ethics approval, data availability, and any non-trivial use of AI tools.
  • The submission follows the COPE Core Practices.