The journal is dedicated to the publication of scholarly contributions in areas of data management such as database system technology and information systems, including their architectures and applications. Further, the journal’s scope is restricted to areas of data management that are covered by the combined expertise of the journal’s editorial board.

Submissions with a substantial theory component are welcome, but the VLDB Journal expects such submissions also to embody a systems component.

In relation to data mining, the journal will handle submissions where systems issues play a significant role. Factors that we use to determine whether a data mining paper is within scope include:

The submission targets systems issues in relation to data mining, e.g., by covering integration with a database engine or with other data management functionality.
The submission’s contributions build on (rather than simply cite) work already published in database outlets, e.g., VLDBJ, ACM TODS, PVLDB, ACM SIGMOD, IEEE ICDE, EDBT.
The journal's editorial board has the necessary expertise on the submission's topic.
Traditional, stand-alone data mining papers that lack the above or similar characteristics are out of scope for this journal. Criteria similar to the above are applied to submission from other areas, e.g., information retrieval and geographical information systems.