Journal History

CIT’s inception dates back to the now distant 1992 when, as the result of an initiative coming from the University of Zagreb and backed by the former Ministry of Science, Technology and Informatics of the Republic of Croatia, it was decided to start a new scientific journal in the dynamic areas of computing and information technology. The journal was to be published by the University Computing Centre – SRCE, targeting the academic audience, particularly of Central Europe and the Mediterranean. Undoubtedly, at this point we have to mention the individuals who contributed to CIT’s birth: Professors Leo Budin, Vlatko Čerić, Dean Rosenzweig and Slobodan Ribarić formed the Editors’ hard core. They were soon joined by Professor Branko Jeren, along with Professor Slavko Krajcar as the Journal’s director, and Professor Vlado Glavinić as the Book Reviews Editor. This initial team was headed by Professor Leo Budin, as CIT’s first Editor-in-Chief, later succeeded in this position by Professors Vlatko Čerić, Sven Lončarić and Vlado Glavinić.

CIT’s first issues also contained the Croatian Professional Newsletter on Computing and Information Technology (in Croatian), later discontinued, which was edited by an additional Croatian Editors’ team consisting of Professors Damir Boras, Hrvoje Gold, Ivan Rusan and Mladen Varga.

The first issue of CIT was published in March 1993, having SRCE’s financial and technical support in the past 23 years of uninterrupted publishing. This has allowed the publication of two parallel editions in 93 issues – the paper version since the beginning, and the Web one since 2002. To illustrate the overall publishing effort invested in CIT, it should be known that up to this very moment approximately 1800 submissions have been processed, with about 660 papers published, thus making an acceptance rate of approximately 37%. Since 2012 the average acceptance rate has decreased to approximately 30%, with a trend of further drop. In the same period the number of submissions has steadily increased from 50-70 per year to the present average 160-180 per year.

Along with regular issues, CIT has regularly published special issues, here including the traditional series of such issues with selected papers from our sister Conference on Information Technology Interfaces – ITI, which regrettably got discontinued in 2014, as well as special issues targeting novel topics in the areas of computing and information technology and guest edited by recognized experts in the respective fields of research. This practice will be continued in our future publishing effort.

After almost a quarter of a century of unbroken publishing of CIT. Journal of Computing and Information Technology, its publisher – the University Computing Centre (SRCE) – realized with regret that in line with its new duties within the University of Zagreb and the Croatian national research and education e-Infrastructure, such publishing endeavor doesn’t lie within its mission any more. In this respect, some time ago SRCE started negotiations with another institution within the same University – the Faculty of Electrical Engineering and Computing (FER), in order to transfer the publishing duties. These negotiations ended fruitfully, with both institutions reaching an understanding on the necessity to maintain the continuity of publishing CIT, hence leading FER to take over its publishing. 

Therefore, starting January 1, 2016, CIT's new publisher is the Faculty of Electrical Engineering and Computing of the University of Zagreb.