Focus and scope
„Homo Ludens” (ISSN 2080-4555, DOI: 10.14746/HL), registered in Poland in 2009, is the official journal issued by the Games Research Association of Poland (Polskie Towarzystwo Badania Gier). The journal carries original articles on various aspects of ludology as broadly perceived games research in the humanities, social and other sciences. It presents a representative survey of empirical and theoretical research conducted in this area in Poland and abroad as well as reflections on issues in the area of game studies. It also publishes selected book reviews and reports in this area.
The aim and mission of the journal is an international and cross-cultural integration of academics dealing with broadly perceived game studies and other ludic acticities, and creating a platform of scientific thoughts exchange.
The languages of the journal is Polish and English. The journal is issued on line in a form of a continuous publication – before publishing of the final versions of the texts on its website early citation versions of selected articles are available. The articles are also available in a print version of the journal issued usually after the publication of the final digital version. The original version of the journal is the digital one. The journal is published once a year.
Free of charge full-text access to all of the articles is available on this site.
Open Access Policy
The journal provides immediate, open access (CC BY-NC-ND 4.0 International) to all its content based on the principle that the research published under open access policy accelerates the spreading, impact and the development of scholarship and the exchange of knowledge. The editors encourage authors to include their published articles in open repositories under the condition that the link to the journal's site and DOI no. of the original publication is given.
The journal does not charge the authors any fees related to the process of publication.
For the authors and reviewers
The editing process
The procedure of selecting and reviewing the articles submitted to the journal „Homo Ludens” is congruent with the regulations and recommendations of the Polish Ministry of Science and Education, last all calendar year long and consists of a few phases.
In the first – selection – phase the Editorial Board rejects the submitted articles which do not fulfill the journal’s general publication requirements available to be downloaded from the site: Wymogi publikacji 2020 or do not correspond with the journal’s thematic profile. Texts requiring minor technical corrections are sent back to the authors with a request to introduce changes.
In the second phase the articles which filfill the journal’s general publication requirements are directed to two independent reviewers. In the case of foreign texts at least on of the reviewers is affiliated at a foreign institution of nationality different than the author’s. During the procedure of the review the model of double blind review is applied in which the authors do not know the reviewer’s identity and vice versa. The review has a written form and is completed with a definite conclusion to accept or to reject a given text. All the reviewers are members of the journal’s two advisory bodies: Academic Advisory Board and Editorial Advisory Board. The list of all members of both Boards are available on this site: https://www.ptbg.org.pl/rada-naukowa-academic-advisory-board/ and printed in every volume of the journal. The list of reviewers of each volume is published separately every year on the PRESSto platform.
In the third – content-related edition and language correction – phase articles which require serious content-related, technical or/and language corrections or contain other formal defects are rejected, even if they were formerly positively reviewed.
The authors are informed via e-mail about the acceptance or rejection of their texts at every phase of the editorial work. The approximate time of the whole editorial process of the submitted texts is about a year.
The original text with the ministerial recommendations concerning the review procedures for academic journals is available on the Polish Acedemic Bibliography site: https://pbn.nauka.gov.pl
Preventing ghostwriting and guest authorship
According to the ministerial recommendations the journal’s Editorial Board has introduced procedures securing the originality of the articles published in the journal.
According to the procedures:
– the authors while submitting their articles automatically declare that they confirm the authorship of their articles i.e. the persons mentioned in it, as the authors, in fact contributed to its creation;
– the authors indicate their affiliations, ORCID number, e-mail address, a short bio and contribution;
– in the case the article is a result of a grant, research project etc. the authors are obliged to give information about the sources of financing it;
– each text qualified for publication is run into the anti-plagiarism program (currently Cross-ref). In the case of discovering academically unethical activities the Editorial Board is obliged to report it to adequate subjects.
Advisable „Principles of Transparency and Best Practice in Scholarly Publishing" recommended by the DOAJ base are avalable here: https://blog.doaj.org/2018/01/15/principles-of-transparency-and-best-practice-in-scholarly-publishing-version-3/
Stylesheet
Manuscripts should be sent via e-mail to homoludens@ptbg.org.pl or uploaded on the PRESSto platform all year long till December 31st each year. Then the editorial process starts. An article is not to exceed 10-12 pages (18,000-21,600 characters). Longer papers will be treated individually. Please format your paper according to the APA (American Psychological Association) stylesheet available at owl.purdue.edu.
Charges and fees for authors and reviewers and subscription fees
In all phases of the editorial process there are no charges, submission fees, publication fees, page fees or any other article processing charges for the authors and reviewers. No subscription fees are charged either.
Editorial policy, copyrights, open access and advertising
All issues of “Homo Ludens” published so far are available to download in free digital (pdf) versions on the site https://www.ptbg.org.pl/homoludens/ within the open access licence according to the rules of Attribution-NoDerivatives 4.0 International (CC BY-ND 4.0) http://creativecommons.org/licenses/by-nd/4.0/ and DOAJ recommendations. In order to secure the safety of the files in the case of quitting publishing of the journal or losing the access to the journal’s internet site the issues are also deposited and stored on the PRESSto platform https://pressto.amu.edu.pl/ and in the bases of CEJSH and Index Copernicus International.
Publishing advertisements in the journal is possible on the conditions each time individually established with the publisher – the Games Research Association of Poland represented by the Managing Board.
Journal History, publisher and financing
The first issue of this journal was published in 2009. Until now one issue per year has been published. Exceptionally in 2015 two issues were published.
The journal was founded and registered in Poznań, Poland in 2009, with the permission and on behalf of the Managing Board of the Games Research Association of Poland (Polskie Towarzystwo Badania Gier) by Dr. Augustyn Surdyk, who has been its Editor-in-Chief until now.
The journal is sponsored by the Games Research Association of Poland (www.PTBG.org.pl) registered in 2005 in Poznan, Poland.
Both the journal and its publisher (GRAP) are registered in Poland.