JSCMT journal is officially supported by Yildiz Technical University, and it is a peer-reviewed free open-access journal,
JSCMT publishes four issues per year (March, June, September, and December).
Publisher: Yildiz Technical University
Editor-in-Chief: Assoc.Prof.Dr. Orhan Canpolat
The Average Time from Submission to Publication: 2 months
Type of Publications: Research Article, Review Article, Short Communication Paper, Technical Note, Letter to Editor, Invited Paper, Book review.
Language of Publication: English
Frequency: Quarterly (4 issues per year)
Publication Type: Online e-version
Journal of Sustainable Construction Materials and Technologies. (JSCMT) is an international journal, peer-reviewed, and open-access journal. Two referees specialized on the subject and selected by the Board of Editors to review the manuscripts submitted.
JSCMT carries original, full-length articles and shorter articles relating to the pursuit and implementation of sustainability pillars through engineering planning, design, and application. It provides an academic platform for professionals and researchers to contribute innovative work in the field. Special issues devoted to international conferences and reviews of books and major reports will be published too.
Submission
Manuscripts should be submitted by one of the authors of the manuscript through the online Manuscript Tracking System. Regardless of the source of the word-processing tool, only electronic PDF (.pdf) or Word (.doc, .docx, .rtf) files can be submitted through the MTS. There is no page limit. Only online submissions are accepted to facilitate rapid publication and minimize administrative costs. Submissions by anyone other than one of the authors will not be accepted. The submitting author takes responsibility for the paper during submission and peer review. If for some technical reason submission through the MTS is not possible, the author can contact jscmt@yildiz.edu.tr for support.
This journal offers authors
no publishing charges
no proofreading charges
full text of papers available free on-line (open access)
no page charges
fast publication times: your paper will appear online as soon as it is ready, in advance of the print version
free color online, and in print at the discretion of the Publisher
electronic offprint of your published paper will be sent to ten colleagues of your choice, giving your article an increased chance of being cited quickly
full electronic submission in any format
a rigorous, fast and constructive peer review process
free plagiarism checking
Our submission system is very flexible so that the authors may submit their initial manuscript in any format that they want and no need to follow the format of Journal.
DOI numbers will be given to all published papers and they can be seen from the link below:
http://eds.yildiz.edu.tr/jscmt/Articles
Terms of Submission
Papers must be submitted on the understanding that they have not been published elsewhere and are not currently under consideration by another journal or any other publisher. The submitting author is responsible for ensuring that the article's publication has been approved by all the other coauthors. It is also the authors' responsibility to ensure that the articles emanating from a particular institution are submitted with the approval of the necessary institution. Only an acknowledgment from the editorial office officially establishes the date of receipt. Further correspondence and proofs will be sent to the author(s) before publication unless otherwise indicated. It is a condition of submission of a paper that the authors permit editing of the paper for readability. All enquiries concerning the publication of accepted papers should be addressed to jscmt@yildiz.edu.tr.
Peer Review
All manuscripts are subject to peer review and are expected to meet standards of academic excellence. Submissions will be considered by an editor and “if not rejected right away” by peer-reviewers. Contributors who may be invited by the editors, or who may submit outline proposals directly are offered a small royalty upon the publication of the article.
Article Structure:
Manuscript template:
Title and Authorship Information
The following information should be included
Paper title
Full author names
Full institutional mailing addresses
Email addresses
Abstract
The manuscript should contain an abstract. The abstract should be self-contained and citation-free and should not exceed 200 words.
Introduction
This section should be succinct, with no subheadings.
Materials and Methods
This part should contain sufficient detail so that all procedures can be repeated. It can be divided into subsections if several methods are described.
Results and Discussion
This section may each be divided by subheadings or may be combined.
Conclusions
This should clearly explain the main conclusions of the work highlighting its importance and relevance.
Acknowledgments
All acknowledgments (if any) should be included at the very end of the paper before the references and may include supporting grants, presentations, and so forth.
References
APA reference system should be used for the references in the manuscript, For example;
[1] Ortega, J., Esteban, M., Rodríguez, R., Pastor, J., Ibanco, F., Sánchez, I., & Climent, M. (2017). Long-Term Behaviour of Fly Ash and Slag Cement Grouts for Micropiles Exposed to a Sulphate Aggressive Medium. Materials, 10(6), 598. https://doi.org/10.3390/ma10060598
[2] Fonseca, F. S., Godfrey, R. C., & Siggard, K. (2015). Compressive strength of masonry grout containing high amounts of class F fly ash and ground granulated blast furnace slag. Construction and Building Materials, 94, 719–727. https://doi.org/10.1016/j.conbuildmat.2015.07.115
[3] Thakur, Y. K., Kumar, M. G., & Chopra, T. G. (2014). Effect of Marble Dust and Furnace Slag as Sand Replacement Materials on Strength Properties of Pavement Quality Concrete (PQC) (Doctoral dissertation).
[4] Bras, A., Henriques, F. M., & Cidade, M. (2010). Effect of environmental temperature and fly ash addition in hydraulic lime grout behaviour. Construction and Building Materials, 24(8), 1511–1517. https://doi.org/10.1016/j.conbuildmat.2010.02.001
Authors are responsible for ensuring that the information in each reference is complete and accurate. All references must be numbered consecutively and citations of references in text should be identified using numbers in square brackets (e.g., “as discussed by Smith [9]”; “as discussed elsewhere [9, 10]”). All references should be cited within the text; otherwise, these references will be automatically removed.
Preparation of Figures
Upon submission of an article, authors are supposed to include all figures and tables in the PDF file of the manuscript. Figures and tables should not be submitted in separate files. If the article is accepted, authors will be asked to provide the source files of the figures. Each figure should be supplied in a separate electronic file. All figures should be cited in the paper in a consecutive order. Figures should be supplied in either vector art formats (Illustrator, EPS, WMF, FreeHand, CorelDraw, PowerPoint, Excel, etc.) or bitmap formats (Photoshop, TIFF, GIF, JPEG, etc.). Bitmap images should be of 300 dpi resolution at least unless the resolution is intentionally set to a lower level for scientific reasons. If a bitmap image has labels, the image and labels should be embedded in separate layers.
Preparation of Tables
Tables should be cited consecutively in the text. Every table must have a descriptive title and if numerical measurements are given, the units should be included in the column heading. Vertical rules should not be used.
Proofs
Corrected proofs must be returned to the publisher within 2-3 days of receipt. The publisher will do everything possible to ensure prompt publication. It will therefore be appreciated if the manuscripts and figures conform from the outset to the style of the journal.
Copyright
Articles published in JSCMT Journal of Sustainable Construction Materials and Technologies have the international license of "Creative Commons Attribution-NonCommercial 4.0". Accordingly, the authors who publish their articles in the journal are deemed to have accepted the following conditions:
• The author(s) retain the copyright of the article and give the journal the first publication right. The article is licensed under the Creative Commons Attribution license, which allows it to be shared by others, provided that the author(s) are specified and published first in this journal.
• The author(s) can make a separate agreement for the distribution of the published version in the journal of the article (such as sending to an institutional database or publication in a book) without giving full authorization.
• The author(s) can share the published version of the article on the corporate database or on their own websites. This can lead to efficient exchanges, earlier dissemination of the article and more citations.
Creative Commons License ( CC-BY-NC License)
Indicates that the article has a Creative Commons Attribution-Non Commercial 4.0 international license. If your article has this license, you can do the following;
• You can share, copy and reproduce the article published in the journal in any size and format provided that you provide the source.
• The licensor does not restrict freedoms as long as you maintain the license terms.
By providing that the following conditions are met;
Attribution: You must give the appropriate information, the license link, and if the change was made, the change information. You may properly carry out these operations without the knowledge that the licensor approves your use.
Non-commercial: You may not use this article for commercial purposes.
Not derived: If you mix, transfer, or work on the material, you may not distribute updated material.
No additional restrictions: You may not limit the rights permitted by the license on others by law or by using technology.
The use of general descriptive names, trade names, trademarks, and so forth in this publication, even if not specifically identified, does not imply that these names are not protected by the relevant laws and regulations.
While the advice and information in this journal are believed to be true and accurate on the date of its going to press, neither the authors, the editors, nor the publisher can accept any legal responsibility for any errors or omissions that may be made. The publisher makes no warranty, express or implied, with respect to the material contained herein.
Publication ethics and malpractice statement
(Composed using the Publishing ethics resource kit and in compliance with Elsevier recommendations)
Ethical guidelines for journal publication (These guidelines are based on existing Elsevier policies)
The publication of a paper in peer-reviewed issues of Journal of Sustainable Construction Materials and Technologies (JSCMT) is an essential building block in the development of a coherent and respected network of knowledge. It is a direct reflection of the quality of the work of the authors and the institutions that support them. Peer-reviewed papers support and embody the scientific method. It is therefore important to agree upon standards of expected ethical behavior for all parties involved in the act of publishing: the author, the journal editor, the peer reviewer, the publisher and the society.
Yildiz Technical University as publisher of the issues of Journal of Sustainable Construction Materials and Technologies (JSCMT) takes its duties of guardianship over all stages of publishing extremely seriously and we recognize our ethical and other responsibilities.
We are committed to ensuring that advertising, reprint or other commercial revenue has no impact or influence on editorial decisions. In addition, Yildiz Technical University and main editor peer review will assist in communications with other journals and/or publishers where this is useful and necessary.
Duties of authors (These guidelines are based on existing Elsevier policies)
Reporting standards
Authors of papers of original research should present an accurate account of the work performed as well as an objective discussion of its significance. Underlying data should be represented accurately in the paper. A paper should contain sufficient detail and references to permit others to replicate the work.
Fraudulent or knowingly inaccurate statements constitute unethical behavior and are unacceptable.
Review and professional publication papers should also be accurate and objective, and editorial opinion works should be clearly identified as such.
Data access and retention
Authors may be asked to provide the raw data in connection with a paper for editorial review, and should be prepared to provide public access to such data, if practicable, and should in any event be prepared to retain such data for a reasonable time after publication.
Originality and plagiarism
The authors should ensure that they have written entirely original works, and if the authors have used the work and/or words of others that this has been appropriately cited or quoted. Plagiarism takes many forms, from passing of another paper as the authors own paper, to copying or paraphrasing substantial parts of another paper (without attribution), to claiming results from research conducted by others. Plagiarism in all its forms constitutes unethical publishing behaviour and is unacceptable.
Multiple, redundant or concurrent publication
An author should not in general publish manuscripts describing essentially the same research in more than one journal or primary publication. Submitting the same manuscript to more than one journal or conference proceedings concurrently constitutes unethical publishing behaviour and is unacceptable. In general, an author should not submit for consideration in another journal or conference proceedings previously published paper. Publication of some kinds of papers (e.g. clinical guidelines, translations) in more than one journal or conference proceedings is sometimes justifiable, provided certain conditions are met. The authors and editors of the journals or conference proceedings concerned must agree to the secondary publication, which must reflect the same data and interpretation of the primary document. The primary reference must be cited in the secondary publication.
Acknowledgement of sources
Proper acknowledgment of the work of others must always be given. Authors should cite publications that have been influential in determining the nature of the reported work. Information obtained privately, as in conversation, correspondence, or discussion with third parties, must not be used or reported without explicit, written permission from the source. Information obtained in the course of confidential services, such as refereeing manuscripts or grant applications, must not be used without the explicit written permission of the author of the work involved in these services.
Authorship of the paper
Authorship should be limited to those who have made a significant contribution to the conception, design, execution, or interpretation of the reported study. All those who have made significant contributions should be listed as co-authors. Where there are others who have participated in certain substantive aspects of the research project, they should be acknowledged or listed as contributors. The corresponding author should ensure that all appropriate co-authors and no inappropriate co-authors are included on the paper, and that all co-authors have seen and approved the final version of the paper and have agreed to its submission for publication.
Disclosure and conflicts of interest
All authors should disclose in their manuscript any financial or other substantive conflict of interest that might be construed to influence the results or interpretation of their manuscript. All sources of financial support for the project should be disclosed. Examples of potential conflicts of interest which should be disclosed include employment, consultancies, stock ownership, honoraria, paid expert testimony, patent applications/registrations, and grants or other funding. Potential conflicts of interest should be disclosed at the earliest stage possible.
Fundamental errors in published works
When an author discovers a significant error or inaccuracy in his/her own published work, it is the authors’ obligation to promptly notify the main editor or publisher and cooperate with the main editor to retract or correct the paper. If the editor or the publisher learns from a third party that a published work contains a significant error, it is the obligation of the author to promptly retract or correct the paper or provide evidence to the main editor of the correctness of the original paper.
Duties of the Main Editor Peer Review (These guidelines are based on existing Elsevier policies and COPEís Best Practice Guidelines for Journal Editors)
Publication decisions
The main editor of peer-reviewed issues of Journal of Sustainable Construction Materials and Technologies is responsible for deciding which of the papers submitted to the journal's issues should be published. The validation of the work in question and its importance to researchers and readers must always drive such decisions. The main editor may be guided by legal requirements as shall then be in force regarding libel, copyright infringement and plagiarism. The main editor may confer with other editors or reviewers in making this decision.
Fair play
A main editor should evaluate manuscripts for their intellectual content without regard to race, gender, sexual orientation, religious belief, ethnic origin, citizenship, or political philosophy of the authors.
Confidentiality
The main editor must not disclose any information about a submitted manuscript to anyone other than the corresponding author, reviewers, potential reviewers, and the publisher, as appropriate.
Disclosure and conflicts of interest
Unpublished materials disclosed in a submitted manuscript must not be used in an editor's own research without the express written consent of the author. Privileged information or ideas obtained through peer review must be kept confidential and not used for personal advantage. Editor should recuse themselves from considering manuscripts in which they have conflicts of interest resulting from competitive, collaborative, or other relationships or connections with any of the authors, companies, or (possibly) institutions connected to the papers. Editor should require all contributors to disclose relevant competing interests and publish corrections if competing interests are revealed after publication. If needed, other appropriate action should be taken, such as the publication of a retraction or expression of concern.
Involvement and cooperation in investigations
A main editor should take reasonably responsive measures when ethical complaints have been presented concerning a submitted manuscript or published paper, in conjunction with the publisher (or society). Such measures will generally include contacting the author of the manuscript or paper and giving due consideration of the respective complaint or claims made, but may also include further communications to the relevant institutions and research bodies, and if the complaint is upheld, the publication of a correction, retraction, expression of concern, or other note, as may be relevant. Every reported act of unethical publishing behaviour must be looked into, even if it is discovered years after publication.
Ethical Principles and Policies
Publication Ethics
Publication processes of Journal of Sustainable Construction Materials and Technologies are based on producing, developing and sharing knowledge evenhandedly within scientific methods.
Refereed articles are studies require scientific methods and they provide objectivity. All components of publication process (publisher, editors, authors, reviewers and readers) should obey ethical rules for scientific production. Within this context, the policies of ‘publication ethics’ and ‘open access’ also require all components of publication process to obey the ethical principles, in direction of guides and policies of Committee on Publication Ethics (COPE), as “Code of Conduct and Best Practice Guidelines for Journal Editors” and “COPE Best Practice Guidelines for Journal Editors”.
In case we identify that author(s) of the manuscript use(s) falsified and fabricated data, then we will report this to the institution of the authors where he/she works and reject the manuscript. Editorial members of the journal and/or the reviewers reserve the right to ask author(s) to provide raw data which was used in the manuscript.
Ethical Responsibilities of the Publisher
The publisher of Journal of Sustainable Construction Materials and Technologies is a public-spirited and nonprofit-organization.
The Responsibilities of Editorial Board of Journal of Sustainable Construction Materials and Technologies
Editorial Board of Journal of Sustainable Construction Materials and Technologies …
• is responsible for all processes of the articles sent to the journal. This responsibility requires deciding independently by considering public interest, not personal gains. The relationship between Publisher and the Editorial Board is based on independence policy, and all decisions of the editors are independent from the publisher and the other persons and institutions.
• permanently strives to develop and raise the quality of the journal.
• determines and performs journal policies as publication, blind review, evaluation process and ethical principles.
• keeps copyrights of the articles published in Journal of Sustainable Construction Materials and Technologies.
• is responsible for keeping intellectual property rights of authors in publication processes and guarding against unethical behaviors, plagiarism and reference gangs.
• prepares a “Guide for Authors” to inform authors and “Guide for Reviewers” to inform reviewers about evaluation processes.
• determines incentive policies for the authors.
• keeps records of every article electronically or in written forms.
The Responsibilities of Editors, Editor Assistants and Field Editors
• Editors try to inform reviewers, authors, researchers and readers, to answer their questions clearly within the principles of clarity.
• Editors, during the publication process, consider that the articles should be original and contribute the literature, the readers and researchers.
• While editors are making decisions about the article publication, they consider originality, contribution to the field, clarity of expressions, content and validity and reliability of the articles.
• Editors take the articles without any problem to the preliminary evaluation, consider positive views of reviewers, and they do not change the decisions of the reviewers unless there is a big problem for publishing.
• Editors implement the policies of blind review and evaluation processes, keep private personal identity information of the authors, and provide impartial evaluation processes in due of time for the articles.
• Editors send the articles to field editors and reviewers considering their professional fields, and care that the articles are evaluated impartially and independently.
• Editors, in evaluation processes, consider if there are conflicts or collaborations between authors and reviewers or not.
• Editors generate a large number or reviewers, and they update it consistently.
• Editors prevent non-scientific that do not comply with academic etiquette rules.
• Editors ensure that journal publishing processes are operated in accordance with publishing policies and guidelines, inform those who are in the process of the developments on publishing policies, and prepare training programs when necessary.
• Editors communicate effectively with everyone involved in the publishing processes, and organize meetings at regular intervals.
• Editors provide protection of personal data in assessed articles; they keep personal data of authors, referees and readers.
• Editors attach importance to the protection of human and animal rights in the articles, emphasize that the clear approval of the participants of the article is documented, and rejects the articles witout the approval of the ethics committee on the participants of the article and without any permit in experimental investigations.
• Editors take precautions against misconduct. When there are complaints about the abuse of duty, they share the findings about the subject by conducting an objective investigation.
• Editors provide errors, inconsistencies, or misleading errors in articles to be corrected.
• Editors protect the intellectual property rights of the published articles, and defend the rights of the journal and the author (s) in case of violation. Editors also take the necessary precautions to ensure that the content of the published articles does not infringe the intellectual property rights of other publications; they control authenticity-similarity.
• Editors considers consistent critiques for the articles published in the journal and enables authors to answer these critiques.
• Editors considers the studies including negative conclusions also.
• Editors evaluate the complaints sent to the journal and make necessary statements.
Ethical Responsibilities of Reviewers
The reviewers cannot communicate the authors directly; article evaluation forms and proofreading requests are sent to the authors through the website of the journal. Reviewers must carry the ethical responsibilities in Journal of Sustainable Construction Materials and Technologies as below:
• Reviewers should only accept to evaluate the articles related to the field of their specializations.
• Reviewers should make the evaluation impartially and confidentially. In accordance with this principle, the articles they review should be annihilated after the evaluation process, but they should be used after publication. Nationality, gender, religious beliefs, political beliefs and commercial concerns should not distort the impartiality of the evaluation.
• When reviewers understand that there is a conflict or collaboration, they should inform the editors and refuse to evaluate the article.
• Reviewers must evaluate articles with a constructive attitude in accordance with the academic etiquette rules; they should refrain from insulting and hostile personal comments.
• Reviewers should evaluate the articles they agree on during the evaluation.
Ethical Responsibilities of the Authors
The ethical responsibilities of the authors that apply to Journal of Sustainable Construction Materials and Technologies as below:
• The authors should not send an article published in or sent to be published in another journal to Journal of Sustainable Construction Materials and Technologies at the same time.
• The authors should send original articles to Journal of Sustainable Construction Materials and Technologies. Authors should refer to the sources they use in writing articles in the correct way in the direction of ethical principles.
• Persons who do not contribute to the articles should not be listed as authors, and it should not be proposed to change the author order of a published article and to add authors.
• In the evaluation process of the articles the authors should provide the editorial staff with information about the articles or the raw data if required.
• The authors must document the rights to use the data they use in their articles, the permission for research or the approval of the participants to whom they have searched.
• Authors should communicate with the editors to provide information, to correct the article or to withdraw it when they are aware of the error associated with the evaluation and early appearance phase or the published article in electronic form.
• The author(s) must specify that they received the ethics committee approval for the researches that require data collection by using quantitative or qualitative methods such as experiment, survey, scale, interview, observation, focus group work that require ethics committee decision; the author(s) must also specify the name of the ethics committee, the date and the number of the ethics committee decision on the first-last page and in the method section of the candidate article. In addition, the author(s) must include information on the fact that the informed consent form was received for the case reports in the articles.
• The author(s) should present proof of their ethical principles for data collection process (such as obtaining permission from others to use their documents such as scale, questionnaire, photograph etc.) in the article. It should be noted in the articles that the copyright regulations for research and publication ethics and intellectual and artistic works are complied with. If the study is conducted on human and animal subjects, it should be reported in the article that the study was carried out in accordance with international reports, guidelines, etc.
• Ethics committee approval is not required for review articles from the author(s). However, it should be stated in articles not requiring an ethics committee decision that the ethics committee decision is not required on the first-last page and in the method section of the article.
Plagiarism and Unethical Behaviors
All articles submitted to the Journal of Sustainable Construction Materials and Technologies are scanned by IThenticate or Turnitin software program before they are published. Articles with a similarity of 20% or less are accepted for publication. Articles exceeding this rate are examined in detail and, if necessary, are sent back to the authors for review or correction, and if plagiarism or unethical behavior is detected, their publication is refused.
Some unethical behaviors are listed below:
• Indicating the people who do not contribute to the study as an author.
• Persons who contributed to the study are not specified as authors.
• If the article is produced from the author's master's / doctoral thesis or a project, this is not stated.
• Slicing, that is, publishing multiple articles from a single study.
• Conflicts of interest regarding the submitted articles are not reported..
Notification of Ethics Non-Principles Status Editor
In case of encountering an unethical situation in articles or about editors, reviewers and authors or in articles that does not comply with the ethical principles regarding in the Journal of Sustainable Construction Materials and Technologies, it should be reported immediately by the editor in chief of the Journal of Sustainable Construction Materials and Technologies.
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Copyright
Articles published in JSCMT Journal of Sustainable Construction Materials and Technologies have the international license of "Creative Commons Attribution-NonCommercial 4.0". Accordingly, the authors who publish their articles in the journal are deemed to have accepted the following conditions:
• The author(s) retain the copyright of the article and give the journal the first publication right. The article is licensed under the Creative Commons Attribution license, which allows it to be shared by others, provided that the author(s) are specified and published first in this journal.
• The author(s) can make a separate agreement for the distribution of the published version in the journal of the article (such as sending to an institutional database or publication in a book) without giving full authorization.
• The author(s) can share the published version of the article on the corporate database or on their own websites. This can lead to efficient exchanges, earlier dissemination of the article and more citations.
Creative Commons License ( CC-BY-NC License)
Indicates that the article has a Creative Commons Attribution-Non Commercial 4.0 international license. If your article has this license, you can do the following;
• You can share, copy and reproduce the article published in the journal in any size and format provided that you provide the source.
• The licensor does not restrict freedoms as long as you maintain the license terms.
By providing that the following conditions are met;
Attribution: You must give the appropriate information, the license link, and if the change was made, the change information. You may properly carry out these operations without the knowledge that the licensor approves your use.
Non-commercial: You may not use this article for commercial purposes.
Not derived: If you mix, transfer, or work on the material, you may not distribute updated material.
No additional restrictions: You may not limit the rights permitted by the license on others by law or by using technology.
Journal Description: Our journal is supported by Yildiz Technical University officially, and is a peer-reviewed free open-access journal, published quarterly (March-June-September-December).
Journal of Sustainable Construction Materials and Technologies is open access journal under the CC BY-NC license (Creative Commons Attribution 4.0 International License)
Based on a work at https://dergipark.org.tr/en/pub/jscmt
E-mail: jscmt@yildiz.edu.tr