This special issue introduces a new article type in the CSCW Journal, namely, ‘ECSCW Contribution’.

The European CSCW conferences series, or ECSCW, was launched in 1989 with a view to ‘understanding the specifics of practical, situated action before embarking on computer interventions’, as it was expressed in the preface to the proceedings of the second ECSCW conference in 1991 (Robinson 1991, p. vii), and that ambitious program has been pursued ever since, as manifested in a string of volumes of scholarly articles at a high level of both quality and influence.Footnote 1

In 2016, the ECSCW conference series was merged with its sister conference series COOP, also based in Europe, with which it had alternated. The merged series is now an annual event, organized under the auspices of EUSSET, the European association of researchers exploring and developing practice-centered computing technologies.Footnote 2

It was simultaneously decided, in an agreement between the EUSSET Steering Committee and the CSCW Journal, to abandon the previous publishing model based on proceedings and convert to a new model, in which conventional conference papers would be published on-line, in EUSSET’s Digital Library,Footnote 3 while contributions that meet archival publication standards would be published in the CSCW Journal, in special issues devoted to the annual events. The new model took effect in 2017 and has resulted in three special issues.Footnote 4

Reflecting on this experience, the EUSSET Steering Committee, in collaboration with the CSCW Journal, decided, in February 2019, to change the model for ECSCW articles in the CSCW Journal from a scheme based entirely on special issues to a scheme according to which articles are primarily published in regular issues of the journal as a new article type: ‘ECSCW Contribution’. The motivation for this was to avoid the strict temporal regime of the traditional conference model based on proceeding volumes or special issues, which in too many instances results in rejections of submissions that perhaps just needed one or two additional rounds of revise and resubmit to be accepted and published. All in all, it is the expectation that this model will provide a framework in which there is time and space to give promising research due attention and support and in which there is less stress all around.Footnote 5

Submissions to the journal under this article type are reviewed in accordance with the journal’s procedures and quality standards. The review process is overseen by the journal’s ECSCW Associate Editor and managed by a panel of editors appointed by the conference chairs in collaboration with the journal’s editors. The panel that undertook the hard work of handling the contributions published in this special issue consisted of: Antonella De Angeli, Thomas Ludwig, and Fabiano Pinatti. The responsibility for the ultimate decision to accept or reject a submission rests with the ECSCW Associate Editor in collaboration with the journal’s editor-in-chief, as per standard procedure.

Under this model, manuscripts can be submitted at any time, and the review process will commence without unnecessary delay. As for the logistics of presenting ECSCW contributions at ECSCW conferences, authors of articles accepted and published on Springer’s Online First website (or in regular or special journal issues) by April are invited to present their work at the upcoming ECSCW conference, usually mid-June (and will have to register to the conference). In cases where substantive revisions of a submission turn out to be required with the effect that the R&R cycle for it has not reached a state where the manuscript can be nominated for the upcoming ECSCW conference, the manuscript will normally be transferred to the batch of manuscripts under consideration for the next ECSCW conference again.

The objective of collecting the articles in this special issue is to mark the introduction of this new article type. In the future, the ECSCW contributions will appear, marked ‘ECSCW contribution’, on SpringerLink’s Online First site and in the pages of the journal, as they are reviewed, accepted, and typeset.

We look forward to be able to publish many more ECSCW contributions in the journal.