Editorial Policy
Overview
Zede is a scientific journal on engineering science and application, produced under the auspices of the College of Technology and Built Environment, Addis Ababa University. The main objective of the journal is to publish research articles, findings and discussions on engineering sciences, technology and architecture thereby assisting in the dissemination of engineering knowledge and methodologies in solving engineering problems. Technical Notes of significant contribution may be considered for publication. This policy describes guidelines in the publication process of Zede Journal.
Authorship
An author is an individual who has significantly contributed to the development of a manuscript. Zede recommends that authorship be based on the following four criteria:
Substantial contributions to the conception or design of the work; or the acquisition, analysis, or interpretation of data for the work; AND
Drafting the work or revising it critically for important intellectual content; AND
Final approval of the version to be published; AND
Agreement to be accountable for all aspects of the work in ensuring that questions related to the accuracy or integrity of any part of the work are appropriately investigated and resolved.
Acknowledgements
Individuals who participated in the development of a manuscript but do not qualify as an author should be acknowledged. Organizations that provided support in terms of funding and/or other resources should also be acknowledge.
Changes in authorship
Whenever there is a need to make changes in the authorship of a manuscript or a published article, the changes will be implemented according Zede specification. Only corresponding authors can make request for a change in authorship. Request should be made to the Editor- in Chief using the changes in Authorship Form.
Submission of Manuscript
Manuscripts should be submitted electronically via the journal platform: https://ejol.aau.edu.et/index.php/ZEDE/about/submissions. Manuscript submissions are required to be uploaded onto the platform in Microsoft® Word format. The submission of manuscripts directly via email or in PDF format is not permitted/acceptable. More details and instructions regarding the submission of manuscripts are provided on the submission page on the journal website through Author Guidelines: https://ejol.aau.edu.et/index.php/ZEDE/about/submissions
Authors listed on the manuscript should have met the requirements for Authorship specified above. Where possible, specify the contribution of each of the authors.
All authors should approve the final version of the manuscript prior to submission. Once a manuscript is submitted, it is therefore assumed that all authors have read and given their approval for the submission of the manuscript. Contact information of all authors should be stated on the manuscript. Emails, and phone/fax numbers. Declaration of Conflicts of Interest should be stated in the manuscript.
Peer Review Process
The submitted manuscripts are subject to a peer review process. The purpose of peer review is to assist the Editor / Editor-in-Chief / Section Editor / Editorial Board in making editorial decisions and through the editorial communication with the author it may also assist the author in improving the manuscript.
The suitability and quality of research articles are initially reviewed by the journal editors before the review process is initiated. Manuscripts may be rejected at this stage or returned to authors for resubmission before the review process. All papers will be subjected to a double-blind (peer review) refereeing process. Referees will be drawn from an expert Editorial Board, selected both for their knowledge of African real estate issues and for their knowledge of current real estate research.
The choice of reviewers is at the discretion of the Editor / Editor-in-Chief / Section Editor / Editorial Board. The reviewers must be knowledgeable about the subject area of the manuscript.
All of the reviewers of a manuscript act independently and they are not aware of each other’s identities. If the decisions of the two reviewers are not the same (accept/reject), the Editor / Editor-in-Chief / Section Editor / Editorial Board may assign additional reviewers.
During the review process, the Editor / Editor-in-Chief / Section Editor / Editorial Board may require authors to provide additional information (including raw data) if they are necessary for the evaluation of the scholarly merit of the manuscript. These materials shall be kept confidential and must not be used for personal gain.
The editorial team shall ensure reasonable quality control for the reviews. With respect to reviewers whose reviews are convincingly questioned by authors, special attention will be paid to ensure that the reviews are objective and high in academic standard. When there is any doubt with regard to the objectivity of the reviews or quality of the review, additional reviewers will be assigned.
Members of the editorial team/board/guest editors are permitted to submit their own papers to the journal. In cases where an author is associated with the journal, they will be removed from all editorial tasks for that paper and another member of the team will be assigned responsibility for overseeing peer review.
Conflict of interest (COI) exists when there is a divergence between an individual’s private interests (competing interests) and his or her responsibilities to scientific and publishing activities such that a reasonable observer might wonder if the individual’s behavior or judgment was motivated by considerations of his or her competing interests” Authors should disclose all financial/relevant interest that may have influenced the development of the manuscript. Reviewers should disclose any conflict of interest and if necessary, decline the review of any manuscript they perceive to have a conflict of interest. Editors should also decline from considering any manuscript that may have conflict of interest. Such manuscripts will be re-assigned to other editors.
Confidentiality
A submitted manuscript is a confidential material. Academic Journals will not disclose submitted manuscript to anyone except individuals who partake in the processing and preparation of the manuscript for publication (if accepted). These individuals include editorial staff, corresponding authors, potential reviewers, actual reviewers, and editors. However, in suspected cases of misconduct, a manuscript may be revealed to members of Academic Journals’ ethics committee and institutions/organizations that may require it for the resolution of the misconduct.
Originality and Plagiarism
All manuscripts must be original. No manuscript will be considered which has already been published in the proceedings of a conference, published in another journal or is being considered by another journal. However, when work described in conference proceedings is substantially revised and extended, it will be considered for publication. By submitting a manuscript, authors certify that the article is not being considered for publication nor has it been published elsewhere.
The journal uses Turnitin software to prevent scholarly and professional plagiarism. All manuscripts submitted to the journal are scanned against the Turnitin database to verify originality. We accept the similarity index if it is less than 20%.
Open Access Policy
Zede Journal of Ethiopian Engineers and Architects is an Open Access Journal and provides immediate free access to its content on the principle that making research freely available to the public supports a greater global exchange of knowledge. Authors do not pay article processing charges (APCs) or publication fees to publish, and readers do not pay subscriptions to read Zede publications. Author(s) are free to deposit (self-archive) their published research papers on institutional repositories, academic social media and personal or departmental websites.
Copyright and Licensing
Any paper submitted for publication in ZEDE must not have been published previously, or submitted for publication elsewhere; and if accepted for publication by ZEDE, the author/s shall transfer the copyright to ZEDE. Zede is published under a Creative Commons Attribution 4.0 (CC BY 4.0) license. This license allows users to distribute, remix, adapt, and build upon the material in any medium or format, so long as attribution is given to the creator. The license allows for sharing and re-use of knowledge with no restrictions.
Correction and retraction of articles
Corrections may be made to a published article with the authorization of the Editor- in - Chief of the journal. Editors will decide the magnitude of the corrections. Minor corrections are made directly to the original article. However, in cases of major corrections, the original article will remain unchanged, while the corrected version will also be published. Both the original and corrected version will be linked to each other. A statement indicating the reason for the major change to the article will also be published.
Publication Frequency
Zede Journal of Ethiopian Engineers and Architects publishes once a year. The journal will publish articles online as they are finalized for publication. These articles will subsequently be assigned to a volume according to the journal's publication schedule. A research article will take on average 20 weeks from submission to publication.
Language
Zede journal of Ethiopian engineers and architects content is published in English. All articles to be submitted should be written in English.
