Aim and Scope

“Modern Trends in Construction, Urban and Territorial Planning” is an international peer-reviewed scientific and practical journal designed to inform the readers about the latest advancements, trends and prospects in the field of construction, architecture, urban planning and related scientific fields.

The journal aims at providing the scholars, researchers, postgraduate students, engineering and technical staff, teachers of practice-oriented learning, students of the civil engineering, architecture and urban planning majors the opportunity to publish the latest findings and advanced solutions of the fundamental and applied engineering problems, predominantly in the field of construction.

The objectives of the journal “Modern Trends in Construction, Urban and Territorial Planning” are as follows:

• to provide the Russian and foreign scholars and civil engineering professionals the opportunity to publish the results of their research;
• to ensure the high quality of published scientific articles through networking of the scholars and civil engineering, architecture and urban planning professionals at the stage of articles’ submission and peer-review;
• to draw attention to the most relevant, perspective and breakthrough trends in development of the construction industry;
• using the journal pages, to share views on the key theoretical and practical issues referring to the engineering structures, building constructions, buildings and structures safety, architecture and urban planning, construction materials and technologies;
• to concentrate the scientific, practical and educational efforts in the field of construction.

The journal accepts for consideration and publication the analytical reports, scientific articles, review articles on fundamental and applied issues of engineering sciences, predominantly of the field of construction.

Native as well as foreign authors are invited to publish their articles in the journal.

Section Policies

Building constructions, buildings and engineering structures

Open Submissions

Indexed

Peer Reviewed

Footings and foundations, subsurface structures

Open Submissions

Indexed

Peer Reviewed

Building materials and products

Open Submissions

Indexed

Peer Reviewed

Technology and organization of construction

Open Submissions

Indexed

Peer Reviewed

Construction mechanics

Open Submissions

Indexed

Peer Reviewed

Urban planning, rural settlements planning

Open Submissions

Indexed

Peer Reviewed

Life cycle management of construction facilities

Open Submissions

Indexed

Peer Reviewed

Anniversary of the scientist

Open Submissions

Indexed

Peer Reviewed

Publication Frequency

4 issues per year:

March,

June,

September,

December

Open Access Policy

The journal "Modern Trends in Construction, Urban and Territorial Planning" adheres to the Open Access policy, i.e. access to the articles published in the journal is open for all.

Except for the academic audience, the journal is targeted at the non-academic readers interested in discussing the fundamental and applied issues in the field of construction. Guided by the following principle: unlimited open access to the research results fosters the growth of the global knowledge exchange, the journal provides the direct open access to its content.

The Open Access Policy complies with the Budapest Open Access Initiative (BOAI) definition and means that articles are openly accessible in the Internet, which enables all the users to read, download, copy, distribute, print out, search for or refer to the full texts of these articles, scan them for indexing, transmit as data for software or use them for any other legal purposes facing no financial, juridical or technical barriers.

Archiving

• Russian State Library (RSL)
• National Electronic-Information Consortium (NEICON)

Peer-Review

All scientific articles submitted to the journal "Modern Trends in Construction, Urban and Territorial Planning" undergo mandatory double anonymous ("double-blind") peer-review.

1. Articles are reviewed by the Editorial Board members as well as by the external experts. The decision to nominate a certain reviewer for peer-reviewing an article is made by the Editor-in-Chief and Deputy Editor-in-Chief. The review process takes up to 4 weeks, but it can be extended upon the reviewer’s request.
2. Each manuscript is sent to 2 reviewers.
3. The reviewing is made in the unbiased way. Reviewers must clearly express their opinion justifying it with the proof-points. Any manuscript received for peer-reviewing must be treated as a confidential document.
4. Each reviewer has the right to refuse from peer-reviewing in case there is a clear conflict of interest that might affect the perception and interpretation of the manuscript’s Based on the manuscript peer-review results, a reviewer makes the recommendations on the future of an article (each decision of a reviewer must be justified):

• an article is recommended for publication as it is;
• an article is recommended for publication after correcting the shortcomings noted by a reviewer;
• an article needs additional peer-reviewing by another expert;
• an article can not be published in the journal.

5. If a peer-review contains the recommendations on correcting and revising an article, the journal’s Editorial Office sends the text of a peer-review to an author suggesting to take into account the recommendations when preparing a revised version of an article or to refute them (partly or completely) in the reasoned way.

   The revision of an article must not take more than two weeks from the moment of sending an e-mail about the need for rectification to the authors. The article revised by the author is sent for the repeated peer-review.

6. In case the authors refuse to revise the materials, they must notify the journal in writing or orally about their refusal to publish an article. If the authors do not return the revised version of an article after 4 weeks from the date of sending them a peer-review, even though the authors’ refusal to revise the article has not been received, the Editorial Office takes the article off the registration. In such cases, the appropriate notification about cancelling the manuscript’s registration due to expiration of the revision period deadline is forwarded to the authors.
7. If the inextricable contradictions with regard to a manuscript arise between an author and reviewers, the Editorial Board is entitled to send a manuscript for an additional peer-review. In conflict situations, the decision is made by the Editor-in-Chief at the Editorial Board meeting.
8. The decision on the manuscript rejection is made at the Editorial Board meeting based on the reviewers’ recommendations. The article which is not recommended for publication by the Editorial Board decision is not accepted for second consideration. The publication rejection message is sent to an author by e-mail.
9. After the journal’s Editorial Board makes the decision to accept an article for publication, the Editorial Office notifies an author about this and specifies the dates of publication.
10. The availability of a positive peer-review is not a sufficient reason for publication of an article. The final decision about publication is made by the Editorial Board. In conflict situations, the decision is made by the Editor-in-Chief.
11. The originals of the peer-reviews are kept in the Editorial Office for 3 years. The journal’s Editorial Office shall forward the copies of the peer-reviews to the Ministry of Science and Higher Education of the Russian Federation in case of receiving the respective request.

Publication Ethics

When making decisions and resolving possible conflicts, the journal complies with the recognized international rules governing the ethical relations between all participants of the publication process: authors, editors, reviewers, publisher and founder.

The provisions outlined in this section rely on the recommendations of the Committee on Publication Ethics (COPE), the principles of transparency and the best practices of scientific publication.

The Editorial Office evaluates the intellectual content of the manuscripts regardless of the race, gender, sexual orientation, religion, origin, citizenship or political preferences of the authors.

To ensure quality of the published materials and copyright compliance, all submitted articles are checked through the plagiarism detection system “Antiplagiat” and only afterwards, they are sent for peer-review.

The acceptable proportion of cited (eligibly reused) text is not more than 20% of the total volume of the article. The review articles and other types of articles, where a larger number of references is justified, are considered by the Editorial Office in the individual way.

The journal’s Editorial Office strongly recommends to avoid the technical means and technics enabling improvement of the text evaluation result in the "Antiplagiat" system.

Articles with the detected signs of technical modifications aimed at the artificial improvement of the text originality will not be published in the journal even after revision.

Founder

Federal State Budgetary Educational Institution of Higher Education Don State Technical University (DSTU)

Address of the Founder, Publisher, Editorial Office: 344003, Russian Federation,

Rostov-on-Don, Gagarin Square, 1

tel.: +7 (863) 2738-372

Publication Fee

Publication of papers in the journal "Modern Trends in Construction, Urban and Territory Planning" is free of charge for the authors. The Editorial Office does not charge the authors for processing, placement and publication of the materials.

Disclosure and Conflict of Interest

Unpublished data obtained from the manuscripts submitted for consideration shall not be used by the Publisher nor transferred to the third parties for the purpose of research without the written consent of an author.

Information or ideas obtained in the course of peer-reviewing and containing the potential favours shall be kept confidential and shall not be used for gaining personal benefit.

In their manuscripts, all authors have to disclose the financial or other existing conflict of interest that might be considered influencing the results or conclusions presented in the work.

The editors and reviewers must not participate in consideration of the manuscripts if there arise the conflict of interest caused by their competitive, collaborative or other interactions and relationships with the authors, companies and possibly other organizations related to the submitted work.

Preprint and Postprint Policy

In the process of article submission, an author must confirm that an article has not been previously published or accepted for publication in another scientific journal.

When referencing an article published in the journal "Modern Trends in Construction, Urban and Territorial Planning", the Publisher requests to provide a link (the full URL of the material) to the official website of the journal.

Articles previously published by the authors on the personal or public websites not affiliated with the other Publishers may be accepted for consideration.

Reviewers' Responsibilities

Peer-reviewing helps the Editor-in-Chief to make a decision about publication and helps the author to improve the quality of his work. Peer-reviewing is the necessary part of the formal scientific communication, the “core” of the scientific approach. The Publisher sticks to the opinion that all scholars willing to contribute to the article must substantially participate in the manuscript peer-reviewing.

Any reviewer chosen but feeling insufficiently qualified to peer-review a manuscript or having no enough time to complete the work quickly must notify the Editor of the journal "Modern Trends in Construction, Urban and Territorial Planning" about this and request to exclude him from peer-reviewing process of the respective manuscript.

A reviewer must provide the unbiased evaluation. Criticism of the author’s personality is unacceptable. Reviewers must clearly and reasonably express their opinion.

The reviewers must detect the significant publications related to the topic but missing in the manuscript’s bibliography. For any previously published statement (observation, conclusion or proof-point) a corresponding bibliographic reference must be provided in a manuscript. A reviewer must also draw the Executive Editor’s attention to the discovered significant similarity or coincidence between a manuscript in question and any other publication within the scope of the reviewer's scientific competence.

Authors’ Responsibilities

Only the persons who have made a significant contribution to creating a concept of a work, development, executing or interpretation of the presented research can be recognised as the authors of the publication. All those whose input has been considerable must be indicated as the co-authors. In case the research participants have made a significant contribution to a particular area, they must be acknowledged as persons who have made a significant contribution to the study.

The authors of a manuscript must provide credible results of the work performed and objective discussion of the research importance. The data underlying the work must be presented in a flawless manner. The work must contain enough details and bibliographic references to enable the potential replication. False or deliberately incorrect statements are considered as unethical behaviour and are unacceptable.

The authors may be asked to provide for reviewing the raw data related to a manuscript. If feasible, the authors must be ready to provide open access to such information (according to the ALPSP-STM Statement on Data and Databases) and in any case look into saving this data for an adequate period of time after publication.

Originality and Plagiarism

The authors must make sure that the submitted work is completely original and, in case of using the works or statements of other authors, they must provide the appropriate bibliographic references or quotes. Plagiarism in any form represents the unethical behaviour and is unacceptable. An author must not publish as an original article in more than one journal a manuscript mainly devoted to one and the same research. An author must not submit for journal consideration an article already published. Submission of one and the same manuscript to more than one journal simultaneously is considered as unethical behaviour and is unacceptable.

Acknowledgement of Original Sources

It is always necessary to acknowledge the contribution of other persons. The authors must cite the publications that are essential for executing the presented work. Data obtained privately, for example, during a conversation, correspondence or in the course of discussion with the third parties, must not be used or presented without the explicit written permission of the original source.

The information (such as manuscripts’ evaluation or grants’ allocation) obtained from the confidential sources, must not be used without the explicit written permission of the authors whose work is recognised as a confidential source. 

Serious Errors in Published Works

If an author detects the serious errors or inaccuracies in a publication, an author must inform about this the Editor-in-Chief of the journal "Modern Trends in Construction, Urban and Territorial Planning" and collaborate with the Editorial Office for prompt retraction of the publication or correcting the errors. If the Editor or the Publisher have been informed about the serious errors in the publication by the third party, an author must retract the work or correct the errors within the shortest possible time.

Retraction Policy

"Modern Trends in Construction, Urban and Territorial Planning" complies with the COPE Retraction Guidelines.

The Publisher is solely responsible for preventing the scientific malpractice, fraud and plagiarism.

In case of alleged or proven scientific violations, fraudulent publications or plagiarism, the Publisher, in close collaboration with the Editorial Office, will take all necessary effort to clarify the situation and correct the article in question. This implies prompt publication of the corrigendum or erratum, clarification notice or, in the most serious cases, retraction of the work. The Publisher together with the Editors, must take reasonable actions to identify and prevent publication of the articles containing the research breaches, and under no circumstances do not encourage such breaches or deliberately allow them.

Indexing

The journal is indexed in the scientific database:

• Russian Science Citation Index (RSCI) 

CrossMark Policy

CrossMark is a Crossref’s service that allows a reader to access the current version of the published article or other material.

The journal "Modern Trends in Construction, Urban and Territorial Planning" uses the CrossMark service to keep the journal's content updated and inform the readers about the changes in the published articles if there occur any.

By clicking on the CrossMark logo at the top of the article one gets information about the current status of the published document and additional information about it.