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Published by
Penerbit Universiti Sains Malaysia

:: Journal Policies

Publication Ethics

The Journal of Construction in Developing Countries adheres to the Committee on Publication Ethics (COPE) standards on publications ethics. Submission of a manuscript implies that:

  • The work described has not been published previously except in the form of an abstract or as part of a published lecture or academic thesis.
  • It is not under consideration for publication elsewhere.
  • Its submission and publication in the Journal are known and approved by all the authors.
  • The work is the author’s and there is no falsification, fabrication of data or plagiarism including duplicate publication of the author’s work without proper citation.

The Journal reserves the right to reject manuscripts that do not comply with the above-mentioned guidelines. The author will be held responsible for false statements or failure to fulfil the above-mentioned guidelines.

Any cases of ethical misconduct are treated very seriously and will be dealt with using the guidelines issued by the COPE. For further details please visit:


Copyright Policy

This Journal provides immediate open access to its content on the principle that making research freely available to the public supports a greater global exchange of knowledge. All articles in the Journal are published open access under a Creative Commons Attribution license (CC BY 4.0). Authors transfer the copyright to Penerbit Universiti Sains Malaysia. This copyright transfer enables the Journal to protect the copyrighted material for the authors but does not relinquish the authors’ proprietary rights. The copyright transfer covers the exclusive rights to reproduce and distribute the article, including reprints, photographic reproductions, microfilm or any other reproductions of similar nature and translations. Authors are responsible for obtaining from the copyright holder permission to reproduce any materials for which copyright exists.

The works are released under a Creative Commons license (CC BY 4.0), which provides unrestricted use, distribution, and reproduction in any medium provided the original work is properly cited. Users have the right to read, download, copy, distribute, print, search, or link to the full texts of articles in this Journal and to use them for any other lawful purpose.


Authorship Policy

The corresponding author is responsible for communication with the Journal and between co-authors. He/she must ensure that all the authors are included in the list in an agreed order and that they are aware that the manuscript is submitted. Any changes to the author list after submission must be accompanied by a letter signed by every author approving those changes.

Authors retain rights of personal use of the material, such as in derivative works, thesis or dissertation and for educational purposes, provided that full acknowledgement is made to the original publication in the Journal.

Authors may upload their accepted manuscript PDF to institutional repositories (including PubMed Central); however, the following clause should be included:

This is a pre-copy-editing, author-produced PDF of a manuscript accepted for publication in the Journal of Construction in Developing Countries following peer review. The definitive publisher-authenticated version [insert complete citation information here] is available online at: xxxxxxx [insert the URL that the author will receive upon publication here].

Conflict of Interest

When submitting a manuscript, authors must declare any potential conflicts of interest. You must do this by including a Conflict of Interest statement in your submitted manuscript.


Funding

Please fully cite any relevant funding information in your manuscript, including specific grant numbers. Funding acknowledgements should be written in the following form: “This work was supported by the Fundamental Research Grant Scheme [grant number xxx]”.

If the research was not funded by any specific project grant, please include the statement: “This research received no specific grant from any funding agency in the public, commercial, or not-for-profit sectors”. An Acknowledgement section may be used to specify this.


Content Originality and Plagiarism

Authors are responsible to submit original content and proper citations must be made for other works referred to in the research. All the manuscripts submitted to the Journal are subject to plagiarism check using the plagiarism checker software.


Open Access Policy

Journal of Construction in Developing Countries published by Penerbit Universiti Sains Malaysia is an open access journal. All articles are published under the terms of the Creative Commons Attribution License (CC-BY). All articles are freely available to read, share and download. In accordance with publication ethics and best practices of scholarly publishing, authors and journals must be properly credited. All articles are accessible via the Journal's website and selected indexing and abstracting databases.


Article Publishing Charge (APC)

With effect from 1st January 2023 onwards, an Article Publishing Charge (APC) of MYR500/USD150 will be imposed on authors upon acceptance of a manuscript for publication (for submission starting 1st January 2023).

All manuscripts published in our journals are open access and freely available online. APC is crucial to sustain and develop an open-access journal. The APC payable for a manuscript is agreed as part of the manuscript submission process. Authors pay a one-time APC to cover the costs of publishing services we provide. This includes provision of online tools for editors and authors, manuscript production and hosting, liaison with abstracting and indexing services, and customer services. The corresponding author of the manuscript is responsible for making or arranging the payment upon editorial acceptance of the manuscript. We advise prompt payment as we are unable to publish accepted manuscripts until payment has been received. Payment should be made through the University’s payment gateway as instructed in the acceptance email from the Editor-in-Chief.

Upon acceptance of a manuscript, an APC of RM500/USD150 will be imposed on the authors. The APC is based on the followings:

  • MYR500 for corresponding author affiliated mainly to an institution in Malaysia.
  • USD150 for corresponding author affiliated mainly to foreign institution outside Malaysia.

(Bank charges have to be defrayed by authors.)

Refund Policy

The corresponding author assumes the responsibility for the APC payment. Penerbit USM will refund an APC if an error on our part has resulted in a failure to publish the accepted manuscript. APCs will not be refunded when articles are withdrawn by the author(s) or retracted as a result of author error or misconduct.

Waiver Policy

There is no discount or waiver on the APC for accepted papers.

Payment Instruction

The APC payment must be made online through USM e-payment portal. Author(s) of accepted paper will be instructed on the payment via the acceptance email from the Editor. Please note that your publication will only be considered upon acceptance of payment, not acceptance date.

Only payment through the USM e-payment portal will be accepted and processed. Once you click the provided link, you should be directed to the USM e-payment form for “Journal Publication” services, in which it will land to the designated journal e-payment portal. Please make sure that the name of the journal is correctly displayed. If the link does not direct to the correct journal, please refer the matter to the Journal Admin immediately.

Author then must fill in the Manuscript ID (provided by the journal during submission). Before you click “Next”, please ensure that you have filled in all required information. Through this portal, payment can be made either by credit card or interbank online transfer method. Author MUST ensure to select the correct currency and amount as instructed in the acceptance email. After you have successfully made the payment, please print the proof of payment as PDF and email this document to the Journal Admin. You will receive an acknowledgement email once we have received the notification of successful transaction from the bank. Should you have enquiries or issues regarding the payment process, please contact the Journal Admin.

APC Payment Guidelines
APC FAQs

USM ePayment Operating Hours

Normal Day Transaction
02:00 am – 10:30 pm
Malaysia Time Zone (UTC+08:00)

Month/Year End Transaction
02:00 am – 11:59 am
Malaysia Time Zone (UTC+08:00)


Language Policy

Manuscript must be written in English.


Peer-Review Policy and Process

This Journal practices double-blind peer review. At all stages of the review process, until the decision to accept has been taken, authors' and reviewers' identities are concealed from each other.

The Editorial Board may exercise their prerogative to reject a manuscript without peer review if that manuscript is judged to be outside the scope of the Journal, poorly written or formatted, or lacking significance.

Reviewers are matched to the manuscript according to their expertise. They are selected from the Journal’s reviewers’ data bank. If a manuscript is found to be of suitable quality and meets the aims and scope of the Journal, it will then be sent to at least two reviewers. The reviewers selected by the Editor may, of course, not necessarily be from the data bank. The Journal also welcomes suggestions for reviewers from authors, though these recommendations may or may not be used.

After receiving a request for peer review, reviewers must respond in a timely fashion, particularly if they cannot do the review, to avoid unnecessarily delaying the process.

Reviewers are tasked to evaluate a manuscript for its originality and significance of contribution, subject relevancy, appropriate coverage of existing literature, the presentation of methodology, results and interpretation, and manuscript organisation. Reviewers are also required to provide anonymous comments to the author and confidential comments to the Editor.

Typically, the review process will take three to five months. Should there be any delay, the Journal will promptly alert the reviewers. For any contradicting reports, the Journal will seek further expert opinion. A revised manuscript may be returned to the initial reviewers. Where manuscript revision is required, authors are urged to ensure that the necessary corrections are made before the manuscript can be accepted for production. Authors will be notified of the decision made by the Editor.


Correction and Retraction

Should there be any corrections to the published article, authors must immediately notify the Journal and specify the corrections. Corrections may be made to a published article with the authorisation of the Editor-in-Chief. The Editor will determine the impact of the change and decide on the appropriate course of action. Minor corrections are made directly to the original article. In cases of major corrections, the original article will remain unchanged while the corrected version will be published as well. An erratum or corrigendum will also be published, indicating the reason for changes to the article. When necessary, retraction of article will be done according to COPE retraction guidelines.


Early View Policy

Early View refers to “Accepted Article View,” where articles are published online immediately after being peer-reviewed and accepted for publication, but before undergoing typesetting and formatting by the Journal. Articles are posted following the receipt of the authors' corrected proofs. They include all the figures and tables and are fully citable. Authors are free to post the PDF or text file of the version accepted for publication on your personal website and/or that of your institution, company, or funding agency, and/or in an online repository as long as you give acknowledgement, mentioning the Journal name in the first instance and including the article’s DOI once it is provided to you in the production stage.


Archiving Policy

The Journal contents are archived by the Malaysian Citation Centre.


License

All articles published in Journal of Construction in Developing Countries are licensed under the Creative Commons Attribution 4.0 International License which under the following terms:
  • Attribution — You must give appropriate credit, provide a link to the license, and indicate if changes were made. You may do so in any reasonable manner, but not in any way that suggests the licensor endorses you or your use.

  • No additional restrictions — You may not apply legal terms or technological measures that legally restrict others from doing anything the license permits.
You are free to:
  • Share — copy and redistribute the material in any medium or format

  • Adapt — remix, transform, and build upon the material for any purpose, even commercially.