The Institute for Documentology and Scholarly Editing (IDE) invites reviews for an upcoming RIDE issue dedicated to Scholarly Digital Editions with a connection to Switzerland. This special issue will review digital scholarly editions that are produced in Switzerland, focus on Swiss history, literature, or culture, or concern people who lived in Switzerland at any point in their lives. Despite limited funding, numerous innovative edition projects have emerged in Switzerland in recent years, and a vibrant community has grown – yet many questions about use, standards, sustainability, and interoperability remain open. By focusing on the Swiss context (multilingual source materials, regional heritage, and national infrastructure), this issue aims to highlight exemplary practices and encourage exchange between Swiss projects and the international digital editing community.
We welcome reviews of digital scholarly editions across all disciplines that fall within the broad scope described. In particular, we encourage reviews of:
- Editions developed by Swiss institutions or research teams, regardless of the subject matter or language.
- Editions focusing on Swiss-related materials, such as historical documents, literary works, or data about Switzerland’s regions and cultural heritage.
- Editions centering on figures with ties to Switzerland, including authors, scholars, or historical persons who were born, lived, or worked in Switzerland.
In addition to the general criteria for reviewing digital editions as outlined by the IDE’s guidelines, reviewers should consider aspects especially pertinent to these editions – for example, how the edition handles multilingual content or multiple scripts (if applicable), the integration with Swiss research infrastructures (such as national libraries, archives or data infrastructures), and any features that make the edition particularly valuable. Reviews should evaluate the depth and quality of the scholarly work (transcription, annotation, commentary, etc.), the technological implementation, and the resource’s user experience.
Submission Details
Expression of interest: Before you begin writing a review, please send a brief email to the editors at ride-ch@i-d-e.de with (1) the edition you propose to review, (2) your institutional affiliation, and (3) a short statement of your expertise and any connection to the project. This advance notice helps us prevent duplicate reviews and manage potential conflicts of interest. We also encourage you to consult the list of projects currently under review (available on the RIDE website) to ensure the edition is not already being reviewed.
Language and length: Reviews may be written in English or any official language of Switzerland (French, Italian, German, Rumantsch), and should typically range from about 2,000 to 5,000 words (to ensure sufficient depth of discussion). Every submission will be subject to editorial and double-blind peer review, as RIDE aims to publish reviews at the level of scholarly articles. To reach the desired depth, please plan for a minimum length of roughly 2,000 words.
Format: Please submit your review as an editable text file (DOCX format preferred to facilitate conversion to TEI). Include any figures or screenshots as separate image files (PNG format), and indicate in the text where each image should be placed (e.g., “(here image-1.png)”). Along with the review text, provide a short abstract in English (even if the review is in another language) to accompany the published article. Also, fill out a short questionnaire to collect specific (meta-)information.
Guidelines and checklist: All authors should familiarize themselves with the RIDE writing guidelines and submission guidelines before submitting. These guidelines outline the expectations for content and citation format, and following them will streamline the editorial process. In particular, please ensure your review addresses the relevant points from the IDE’s Criteria for Reviewing Scholarly Digital Editions and that it situates the edition within broader scholarly and technical contexts. At the time of final submission, you will also need to complete a RIDE questionnaire (for digital editions, see the questionnaire for digital editions). This questionnaire collects standardized information about the resource and should be filled out to accompany your review.
Timeline: Submission is open-ended. Originally, we anticipated a deadline of October 31, 2026, but the issue will operate on a rolling release model. This means reviews will be edited and published online in RIDE on an ongoing basis throughout 2027 as they pass peer review. The special issue will be overseen by Elena Spadini (University of Bern), Beat Immenhauser (Swiss Academy of Humanities and Social Sciences), and Tobias Hodel (University of Bern and Swiss Academy of Humanities and Social Sciences) as guest editors.
Publishing process: RIDE was founded in 2014 to provide a forum for the critical evaluation of digital scholarly editions. The journal is open access – accepted reviews are published on the RIDE platform in HTML and PDF formats, and a TEI-XML version of each review is also made available for download. All reviews undergo a double-blind peer review process to ensure they meet scholarly standards. Publications are released under a Creative Commons CC BY 4.0 license, and no fees are charged for submission, processing, or publication. By contributing to this issue, reviewers help advance best practices in digital scholarly editing and contribute to an ongoing discourse on digital edition methodologies within and beyond Switzerland. The three most impressive reviews will be awarded a RIDE Award.
Suggested Editions for Review
Below is a non-exhaustive, alphabetically sorted list of digital scholarly editions that could be reviewed for this special issue. These suggestions include editions produced in Switzerland or closely related to Swiss history and culture. (Strikethrough indicates projects that have already been assigned to a reviewer and thus cannot be selected.)
- Ajax Multi-Commentary
(https://mromanello.github.io/ajax-multi-commentary/) – A multi-commentary platform about Sophocles’ Ajax - Anton Webern Gesamtausgabe
(https://edition.anton-webern.ch/home) – A critical historical edition of the works of the composer and conductor Anton Webern. - Bernoulli-Euler Online (BEOL)
(https://bernoulli-euler.dhlab.unibas.ch/) – Digital edition and database of the works and correspondence of the Bernoulli family and Leonhard Euler (University of Basel). - Bullinger Digital
(https://www.bullinger-digital.ch/) – Online edition of the correspondence of Heinrich Bullinger (1504–1575), a Swiss Reformation leader. - BurckhardtSource (https://burckhardtsource.org/) – Semantic digital edition of the European correspondence to Swiss art historian Jacob Burckhardt.
- Correspondance de Jean-Alphonse Turrettini 1671-1737 (https://humanities.unige.ch/turrettini/) – Turrettini’s letters, a major source for early modern European Protestant history
- Denis de Rougemont, l’intégrale en ligne
(https://www.unige.ch/rougemont/) – Retour, en textes et en images, sur les étapes d’une vie et d’un parcours intellectuel. - Der späte Nietzsche
(https://nietzsche.philhist.unibas.ch/) – A critical edition focusing on Nietzsche’s late writings. - Desenrollando el cordel
(https://desenrollandoelcordel.unige.ch/inicio.html) – The University of Geneva’s collection of Spanish chapbooks. - Digital Statius: the Achilleid
(https://achilleid.unige.ch/verse) – A critical edition of the Achilleid. - Digitale Gesamtausgabe Jeremias Gotthelf
(https://gotthelf-digital.ch/) – Digital historical-critical edition of the works and letters of Jeremias Gotthelf (Albert Bitzius, 1797–1854). - Diplomatic Documents of Switzerland (Dodis)
(https://www.dodis.ch/de) – Online database and edition of key documents on Swiss foreign policy since 1848. - Gottfried Semper – Der Stil
(https://www.semper-edition.ch/) – Digital edition of Der Stil by Gottfried Semper (1803–1879), with scholarly commentary (ETH Zurich). - Grammateus (https://grammateus.unige.ch/home) – A research environment on Greek documentary papyri from Egypt.
- Gustave Roud. Textes & Archives (https://roud.unil.ch) – A complement to the paper editions of the complete works of Gustave Roud.
- Hermann Burger: Lokalbericht (https://www.lokalbericht.unibe.ch/) – Digital edition of Lokalbericht, a literary work by Swiss author Hermann Burger (1942–1989).
- Johann Georg Sulzer – Johann Jakob Bodmer: Briefwechsel
(https://www.sulzer-briefe.uni-halle.de/sb/) – Online edition of the correspondence between J. G. Sulzer and J. J. Bodmer (18th-century intellectuals, Bodmer based in Zurich). - Kritische Robert Walser-Ausgabe (Electronic Edition)
(https://kwae.kritische-walser-ausgabe.ch/kwae.html) – The digital component of the critical edition of Robert Walser’s works, including transcriptions of Walser’s “Mikrogramme” (microscripts). - Nachlass Karl Barth
(https://kbga.karl-barth.ch/) – The scholarly edition of the oeuvres of the theologian Karl Barth (1886-1968). - Johann Caspar Lavater: Historisch-kritische Edition ausgewählter Briefwechsel (JCLB)
(https://www.jclavater-briefwechsel.ch/) – Online edition of the correspondence of Lavater - Rousseau Online
(https://www.rousseauonline.ch/) – Full-text digital edition of Jean-Jacques Rousseau’s collected works in their first Geneva edition (1780–1789). - Schweizerische Rechtsquellen / Swiss Law Sources
(https://editio.ssrq-online.ch/) – Historic Edition of Law Sources from the Middle Ages to 1798. - To the reader
(https://earlymodernprefaces.unige.ch) – The English prefaces to readers in books printed between 1475 and 1623
Apart from the above suggestions, reviews of other digital editions are welcome as long as they fit the thematic profile of the issue. Please note that projects already under review by RIDE cannot be considered for this issue.
We look forward to your contributions and to shedding light on the rich array of scholarly digital editions from and about Switzerland. By reviewing these resources, you will help researchers and cultural heritage practitioners understand the strengths of each project and promote high standards for future digital editions. Please feel free to reach out to the editors at any time if you have questions about the suitability of a project or the review process.
Contact: ride-ch@i-d-e.de (RIDE Swiss Editions Issue Editors)