Diamond Open Access · Peer-Reviewed · Artifact-Verified · ISSN pending
A Journal of Usable, Versioned Research Software, Pipelines and Benchmarks
Research software is not a fixed object. The version a researcher executed is the only version whose behavior can be verified — so at VERSIONICS, the version, not the project, is the unit of publication, review and citation. Every accepted article is accompanied by an artifact that an independent reviewer has installed, run and checked.
What we publish
The journal is discipline-agnostic: what defines scope is not the field but the character of the artifact. Four tests are applied to every submission — and practical utility and user-friendliness are weighted ahead of technical novelty.
It addresses a real, recurring task faced by identifiable users, and does something they could not do — or not do as well — with existing tools.
A competent newcomer can install it, run a first meaningful example and interpret the output without contacting the authors.
It has a general interface — API, CLI, GUI or web front-end — accepts users' own data, and is free of hard-coded paths and private dependencies.
It has a release history, an identified current version, and a credible statement of continued stewardship.
Article types
A mature, reusable, user-facing research tool or library, from any discipline.
An executable, portable, composable analysis or processing workflow.
A reusable workload, generator, harness or measurement framework — with full disclosure and fairness obligations.
A major or substantial minor release of previously published software. Where other venues see redundancy, VERSIONICS sees a distinct scholarly contribution — provided the increment is demonstrated, not asserted.
Systematically surveys the tools, pipelines and benchmarks of a task area — capabilities, usability and maintenance state — to guide selection and map the gaps.
How review works
Every artifact-type submission undergoes two coordinated reviews, run in parallel and merged into one decision. Both must clear before acceptance — strength in one track cannot compensate for failure in the other.
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