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Author Guidelines

1. Introduction

Journal of the Civil Engineering Forum, with registered number ISSN 2549-5925 (online) is a scientific journal published by Department of Civil and Environmental Engineering, Faculty of Engineering Universitas Gadjah Mada. It is at the International level that covers a lot of common problems or issues related to civil and environmental engineering, natural and human-made disaster. The complete guidelines can be downloaded at Journal Template provided on the right side of JCEF-journal portal

2. Type of Paper

  • Research article: These papers are fully documented, interpreted accounts of significant findings of original research. Subdivided into section (Introduction, methods, Results, Discussion, Conclusion). Research Papers including abstract, references, tables, and figures are limited from 6 to 12 pages.
  • Review article: These are critical and comprehensive reviews that provide new insights or interpretation of a subject through thorough and systematic evaluation of available evidence. We would not expect to receive a review paper that is shorter than 8 pages.
  • Technical note: Technical notes are shorter than research articles and may be used to describe a new methodology or to present results from new techniques or equipment. A technical note should be around 5 to 8 pages.
  • Editorial notes: Unlike 3 type of papers mentioned above, editorial notes do not go through peer-review process. These are short, timely articles that normally take the form of a ‘letter’and summarise recent developments in a field without providing an exhaustive review of all the literature.

3. How to Write the Title, the Name, and the Author’s Address

Apply Title style to the paper’s title. This style has everything needed to define the title layout (font type and size, paragraph alignment, spacing). The title shall be 16 points Roman type font, title case (Capitalize the first character of each text, except for preposition), left aligned, single line spacing, 20 point spacing before and after the paragraph.

Type the name of the authors by their initials followed by their last name. Group the authors by their affiliation. If there is only one co-author and he/she has the same affiliation with that of the first author, put the word “and” to separate their names. Apply Author style to the author paragraph. The authors are written in 12 points Roman type font, left aligned, single line spacing, zero spacing before and after the paragraph. Apply Author Affiliation style to the affiliation paragraph. The paragraph should be 10 points roman type, left aligned, single line spacing, zero spacing before and 10 point spacing after the paragraph. Author(s) affiliation should contain the following: company/institute/university, city, country.

4. The Manuscript General Guidelines

The manuscript text general guidelines are as follows:

  1. The manuscript is the authentic research result that has not been published yet in other publication media or publishing houses.
  2. The manuscript does not contain any plagiarism element. The editorial board will directly reject the text that indicates plagiarism.
  3. The submission and the publication processes are free, without any additional fees.
  4. The manuscript that has been written under the guidelines of Journal of the Civil Engineering Forum (in MS Word format, use the article template) must be submitted through Online Submission System using Open Journal System (OJS) on the JCEF-journal portal. Then, register as the author.
  5. The manuscript online submission can be viewed in the part of online submission guidelines below.
  6. The manuscript which is inappropriate with Journal of the Civil Engineering Forum writing guidelines will be returned to the author before the reviewing process.
  7. The manuscript should contain several aspects of a scientific article as follows: (subtitle as the order), which are: (a) the title of the article, (b) the author’s name (no academic title), (c) the affiliated author’s address, (d) the author’s email, (e) the abstract and the keywords, (f) the introduction, (g) the research method, (h) the results of the research, (i) the discussion of the research finding, (j) the conclusion, (k) acknowledgment, (l) the references, and (m) appendix (es) if it is neccessary.
  8. The chapter heading is written in 11 PT Serif type font, single line spacing, 15 point spacing before and 4 point spacing after the paragraph. An all capital character and an automatic numbering will be given to the chapter heading. The section heading is written in 10 points Noto Sans font, single line spacing, 12 point spacing before and 4 point spacing after the paragraph.
  9. The manuscript has to be written in English with the standard language. The manuscript should consist of six (6) to twelve (12) pages including pictures and tables. The manuscript text ought to be written as this article template in the camera ready mode. The article is written on A4-sized papers (210x297 mm), with the left and right margins at 15 mm, top and bottom margins at 25 mm. Use the one-column page layout for the whole text in the paper.
  10. The text of the articles must be in PT Serif type 11 point, single line spacing. Use 10 point size font for the table captions, the figure captions, the references, the abstract, and keywords.
  11. The words from uncommon or foreign languages are stated in Italic format. Use italics also for titles of journals or books, Latin words (et al.), and parameters in mathematics except for functions (log, ln, sin, cos, max., d in dx, etc). Never use the bold typeface, except to denote vectors in mathematics. Never underline any text.
  12. The tables and pictures should be located close to the first reference to them in the text and number them consecutively. Explanations should be given at the foot of the table, not within the table itself. Tables and pictures are written in 10 points PT Serif type font. You may use a smaller font size (9 points) in tables. The table should fit within a column width of 85 mm.

5. The Guidelines for The Manuscript Body Text

The title of the manuscript: The title should be informative and be written both briefly and clearly. It cannot diverse multi interpretations. It has to be pinpoint with the issues that will be discussed. The beginning word is written in a capital case and symmetrically. The article title does not contain any uncommon abbreviation. The main ideas should be written first and followed then by its explanations. The article title should be written within maximally 10 (ten) words (in English).

Abstract: A concise and factual abstract is required (range from 250 to 300 words). The abstract should state briefly the background, purpose of the research, the principal results and major conclusions. It is written in single line spacing and 8 points Noto Sans text style.

Keywords: Keywords are a tool to help indexers and search engines find relevant papers. If database search engines can find your journal manuscript, readers will be able to find it too. This will increase the number of people reading your manuscript, and likely lead to more citations.

However, to be effective, Keywords must be chosen carefully. They should:

  • Represent the content of your manuscript
  • Be specific to your field or sub-field

Example:

  • Manuscript title: Increases in levels of sediment transport at former glacial-interglacial transitions
  • Poor keywords: climate change, erosion, plant effects
  • Better keywords: quaternary climate change, soil erosion, bioturbation

Introduction: The introduction must consist of the background of the study, state of the art, gap analysis and aim of the study. The background is one or two paragraph explains the reason why this study is conducted. State of the art consists of literature studies which lead to a knowledge gap among the existing studies. The state of the art should be a guide to find a novelty of the study. Gap analysis is a statement to describe finding from the state of the art and the emergence reason for a study is important to be conducted. The gap analysis must state that the study is never conducted elsewhere before. The last paragraph should contain the aim of study which is generated from gap analysis. The last sentences in The Introduction should state the possible contribution of the study to the existing literature or the existing situation.

Methods: The methods section should describe what was done to answer the research question, describe how it was done, justify the experimental design, and explain how the results were analyzed. Scientific writing is direct and orderly. In the methods section it is customary to use a form of the simple past tense to describe what the author did in his/her study. Passive voice is often used. Examples: Total phosphorous (TP) and total nitrogen (TN) were measured in the laboratory using standard procedures. In the method, it is important to describe the type of research; what kind of data and how data is collected and/or selected your data; how data is analyzed; any tools or materials used in the research; the rationale for choosing these methods. The reason for selecting a method should be supported by references.

Result: The results section should include the findings of the study and ONLY the findings of the study. The findings include data presented in tables, charts, graphs, and other figures (maybe placed among research text or on a separate page) A contextual analysis of this data explaining its meaning in sentence form. The results section should simply state the findings, without bias or interpretation, and arranged in a logical sequence.  Typically most of the sentences in the results section will be in the past tense, some will be in the present tense, and very few, if any, will be in the future tense. 

Discussion: The purpose of the discussion is to interpret and describe the significance of the study’s findings in light of what was already known about the research problem being investigated, and to explain any new understanding or fresh insights about the problem after study has taken the findings into consideration. To do this, follow three important suggestions: answer those questions posed in the introduction (central research questions); show how the answers are supported by the results and explain how the answers fit relative to the existing body of knowledge about the subject. In the discussion section, the past tense is generally used to summarize the findings. But when interpreting the results or describing the significance of the findings, the present tense should be used.

Conclusions: The conclusion should be written in one paragraph. The conclusion must summarize the whole paper and explain its main purpose. Important things to write in conclusion: Restate hypothesis or research question; restate major findings; the contribution of the study to the existing literature, highlight any limitations in the study and state future directions for research/recommendations. 

References: All the references used in the article must be listed in this part. 

6. The Guidelines for the Citations and References

Every text citation must be listed under the heading “References” at the end of the text. All the references (minimum 10 references) used in the article must be listed in this part. In this part, all the used references must be taken from primary sources (scientific journals articles). The numbers of journal articles at least 50% of all the references and published in the last ten years.  Apply Heading Not-numbered style to the heading of this reference. The reference must be in Harvard style and listed in alphabetical order, by surname of the first author followed by initials. All the cited references in the article taken from the other author articles should attach the reference sources. The references should use reference application management such as Mendeley, EndNote, or Zotero. Reference application management enables you to deposit any research data (including raw and processed data, video, code, software, algorithms, protocols, and methods) associated with your manuscript in a free-to-use, open access repository. Please include the DOI of the deposited dataset(s) in your main manuscript file.

7. The Online Submission Manuscript Guidelines

The manuscript text must be submitted by one of two systems ( the second procedure is more preferable):

  1. The document should be submitted by Online Submission System in Journal of the Civil Engineering Forum portal here.
  2. Firstly, the author without an JCEF account are required to create an account before beginning their submission. Make sure that the "Author" role is selected in the role checkbox menu, otherwise you will not be able to proceed with the submission.
  3. After the registration step is completed, log in as an author, click on “New Submission”. The article submission stage consists of five stages, such as:  (1). Start, (2). Upload Submission, (3). Enter Metadata, (4). Upload Supplementary Files, (5). Confirmation.
  4. In the “Start” column, chose the Journal Section (Full Article), check all the checklists.
  5. In the “Upload Submission” Columns, upload the manuscript files in MSWord format in this column.
  6. In the “Enter Metadata” columns, fill in with all the author data and affiliation. Including the Journal Title, Abstract and Indexing Keywords.
  7. In the “Upload Supplementary Files” columns, the author is allowed to upload supplementary files, the statement letter, or any other else.
  8. In the “Confirmation” columns, if the data you entered are all correct already, then click “Finish Submission”.
  9. If the author has difficulties in the submission process through the online system, please contact Journal of the Civil Engineering Forum editorial team at jcef.ft@ugm.ac.id
Note: To responds reviewers, the author must attach the revised manuscript and follow the template provided here

 

Submission Preparation Checklist

As part of the submission process, authors are required to check off their submission's compliance with all of the following items, and submissions may be returned to authors that do not adhere to these guidelines.

  1. The submission has not been previously published, nor it is under consideration by any other journals.
  2. The submission file must be prepared using JCEF's template.
  3. The submitted manuscript must be in Microsoft Word format with a complete list of authors and their affiliations.
  4. The manuscript should be written in English.
  5. The manuscript consists of six (6) to twelve (12) pages including pictures and tables.
  6. The manuscript has minimum of ten (10) references from the latest journal articles related to the topic.
  7. Where available, URLs for the references have to be provided.
  8. The text adheres to the stylistic and bibliographic requirements outlined in the Author Guidelines, which is found in the JCEF’s website.
  9. E-mail addresses mentioned in the manuscript (author's e-mail address) have to be official e-mail addresses (avoid using ymail, gmail, etc).
  10. Author have to include supplementary files.
  11. Supplementary files have to provided in the original format (Example: Table in excel spreadsheet, picture in JPEG, BMP, DWG, etc).
  12. Authorship Agreement form can be included in the Supplementary files or sent to jcef.ft@ugm.ac.id before the paper is published. Authorship Agreement form can be downloaded here.
 

Copyright Notice

Copyright

Copyright is granted to authors for the purpose of providing protection for articles written to describe experiments and their results. JCEF will protect and defend the work and reputation of the author and are also willing to address any allegations of violation, plagiarism, fraud, etc. against articles written and published by JCEF.  JCEF is published under the terms of the Creative Commons Attribution-ShareAlike 4.0 International License (CC BY-SA 4.0). The author holds the copyright and assigns the journal rights to the first publication (online and print) of the work simultaneously. We use the restrictive license (non-commercial) as follows:

Creative Commons License 

BY (attribution):

Users are allowed to share, distribute and redistribute articles published in any media or format but with the conditions specified by the licensor. You must give appropriate credit, provide a link to the licensem and indicate if changes were made. You may do so in any reasonable manner, but not in any wat that suggests the licensor endorses you or your use.

SA (Share-Alike):

If you mix, modify, or build upon the materials, you must distribute your contributions under the same license as the originals.

License

1. License to Publish

JCEF is regulated by the Creative Commons Attribution-ShareAlike 4.0 International License as a journal for non-commercial use. After knowingly providing the article to JCEF, the author hereby grants JCEF the right to exclusive publication and distribution license in the manuscript including anything contained therein submitted for publication as part of the manuscript (article) in any type of media, in any form, in all languages, worldwide, for the full copyright term, and the right to license others to do the same, applies if the article is accepted for publication.

2. Author’s Warranties

The author guarantees that the article they writes is an originally written by themselves, the article has never been published in any journal, and does not contain statements that can violate the law, does not violate the rights of others, is subject to copyright which is held exclusively to the author and is free from anything, and that the necessary written permission to quote from other sources in the article has been obtained by the author.

3. User Rights

With a license from Attribution-ShareAlike 4.0 International (CC BY-SA 4.0), the author(s) and users are free to Share (copy and redistribute the material in any medium or format) and are free to Adapt (remix, transform, and build upon the material for any purposes). The licensor cannot revoke this freedom as long as you follow the license terms. The user must provide the appropriate credit, provide a link to the license, and indicate any changes.

4. Rights of Authors

The author has the following rights:

  • the author has the rights to the copyright, and other ownership rights related to the article, such as patents,
  • the author has the right to use the content of the article in his own work for their future purposes, such as a book or otherwise,
  • the author has the right to reproduce the article for their personal purposes, provided the copies are not offered for sale, and
  • the author has the right to archieve their own article

5. Co Authorship

If the article is co-authored by multiple authors, the signers of this form warrant that the lead author has been authorized by all authors to sign this agreement on their behalf, and agrees to notify his co-authors of the terms of this agreement.

6. Royalties

This agreement gives the author the right not to get royalties or other fees. To the extent legally permitted, the author waives the right to collect royalties in connection with articles relating to the use of the articles by JCEF or the sub-licensee.

7. Miscellaneous

JCEF will publish the article (or have published it) in the Journal if the editorial process of the article has been successfully completed by the editorial team and JCEF or the sub-licensee is required to publish the article. JCEF arranges articles by paying attention to punctuation style, spelling, capitalization, and usage that is deemed appropriate.

Authorship Agreement (for Publishing)

The authors agree to transfer publishing copyrights of the article to the Journal of the Civil Engineering Forum (JCEF) and it is effective if and when the article is accepted for publication in JCEF.

Journal of the Civil Engineering Forum (JCEF), the Editorial Teams and Peer-Reviewers make every effort to ensure that no wrong or misleading data, opinions or statements be published in the journal. In any way, the contents of the articles and advertisements published in the Journal of the Civil Engineering Forum (JCEF) are sole and exclusive responsibility of their respective authors and advertisers.

Authorship Agreement should be included in the Supplementary files and can be downloaded here.

 

Privacy Statement

The names and e-mail addresses entered in this journal site will be used exclusively for the stated purposes of Journal of the Civil Engineering Forum (JCEF) and will not be made available for any other purpose or to any other party.