Editor-in-Chief (June 2017–November 2023) Farewell Report

I have completed my two terms as JDIQ Editor-in-Chief (2017–2023) and I am pleased to hand it over to Felix Naumann who took the helm as EiC on November 15, 2023. I am satisfied with the progress that the journal has made these past six years, and this would not have been possible without the excellent contributions of the authors, the commitment of the reviewers, and the great work of the Editorial Board. In addition, let me thank two key people, namely, the Senior Associate Editor, Paolo Missier, and the Information Director/Associate Editor, Andrea Marrella, for their invaluable support in the management of the Journal.

Overall, JDIQ is in very good shape, the submissions have increased steadily in recent years—from 59 in 2018 to 162 in 2022, with an average yearly growth of 34.91%—and the demand to edit special issues on various up-to-date thematic areas has grown even more. In 2023, we received from Clarivate our first Impact Factor, 2.1, with a total of 308 cites in 2022 (cites from journals in the Clarivate database only). The journal reached more visibility due to a new kind of contribution that we started, namely, “On the Horizon” articles. These articles are by invitation only, authored by top researchers in the data and information quality area, with the aim of introducing new emerging topics, and they are widely downloaded and cited. For example, the June 2023 article “Biases in Large Language Models: Origins, Inventory, and Discussion” has already been downloaded by 9,227 users.

Nowadays, data (and their quality) are a crucial component of the digital society, as a consequence their study increasingly attracts the attention of researchers from various fields, ranging from computer science to philosophy, law, sociology, and so on. Thus, this is a perfect time for a journal like JDIQ, which indeed is getting more and diverse submissions (see, e.g., the recent article “AI Compliance—Challenges of Bridging Data Science and Law,” Volume 14, Number 3, September 2022). However, multidisciplinarity could be pushed forward by approaching further research communities, and I hope this will happen in the coming years.

The growing attention around data issues, however, has increased the competition among publication venues, and JDIQ has to remain attractive for top-quality authors. Focused, timely, and with influential guest editors, special issues have proven to be a good instrument for this purpose, also because of the reduced article processing time. As for the regular track, the main concern remains to decrease the overall processing time.

I am confident that Felix will continue to lead the journal to greater successes and wish him all the best. Finally, I want to thank our readers, authors, reviewers, and associate editors for these wonderful years together.