Author Information

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OPEN ACCESS

The Engineering Project Organization Journal is an Open Access Journal.  There is no cost to authors for publishing in EPOJ.

Submission Process

EPOJ accepts two broad types of papers:

1. Research Papers for EPOJ should be in the 7,500 - 10,000 word range including graphics.  If the submitted manuscript exceeds these requirements, the author(s) should provide clear justification in their cover letter to the Editor. 

2. EPOJ encourages academic discourse and discussion. In an open source journal format, readers are welcome to submit reponses to articles published on the site as 'Letters' that are less than 4000 words.

For any clarifications, you may E-Mail the editor, Ashwin Mahalingam at mash@civil.iitm.ac.in

Review Process

All submitted manuscripts are first evaluated by the Editor or Associate Editor to ensure that the manuscript is suitable for the Journal in terms of scope and is of sufficient quality for the peer review process. Following the initial review, suitable manuscripts are taken through a double blind peer review process where they will be evaluated by anonymous, expert referees. Neither the referees nor the authors will be aware of the others' identities. A minimum of two reviews will be used to assess each submission. Assessments from reviewers will be provided to the author(s) with the decision regarding the outcome (accept, revise, or reject). In case of a 'revise' decision, the authors may address the comments raised by the reviewers and resubmit a revised version of their manuscript for peer review. We expect the majority of papers to go through not more than three rounds of reviews before they are either accepted or rejected for publication.

If you have questions regarding the appropriateness of your paper to the journal, please contact the editor.

Manuscript Preparation  Guidelines

Structure

The authors are expected to submit a complete version of their manuscript. Submitted manuscripts must include, in this order: title, authors and affiliations, abstract, keywords, text, references and appendices (if appropriate). If the manuscript uses tables, figures, or equations they should be included inline in the text of the manuscript at the appropriate location with appropriate captions and not at the beginning or end of the manuscripts. Authors are also expected to include a cover letter to the Editor highlighting the corresponding author and any other salient aspects of the manuscript. 

Style Guidelines

The Kriyadocs system that is used for the peer review process will also automate the conversion of the manuscript to the style guidelines followed by EPOJ. The authors are expected to submit a complete version of their manuscript, double spaced, in MS Word. However, beyond this there are no restrictions on the styles and formats that they may use. To support the ease of revision and review however,  authors are encouraged to use standard font styles and types. The preferred format is 12 pt Times Roman. Full paragraphs should be justified, with an indent at the beginning of a paragraph. Lines between paragraphs should not be skipped within the same section but should skip a line between sections.

MAIN SECTION TITLES - 12pt bold using all capital letters

Second Section Titles – 12pt bold, Capitalize the first letter of words

Third Section – 12 pt italicized, capitalize the first letter of words

References

Cited publications, when used in the text, should should follow a standard name date referene in the text: list the author’s surname (family name) along with the year: (e.g. Mahalingam 2020). In the case of two authors, both surnames should be listed (e.g. Mahalingam and Dossick 2020). In citations with more than two authors, the in-text citation should list the first surname followed by “et al.” (e.g. Mahalingam et al. 2020). If the author name(s) occur in the body of the text then only the year is provided within the parentheses, immediately following the author name(s): e.g. Mahalingam (2020). If more than one citation is being noted, the references should be separated by a comma: (e.g. Mahalingam 2020, Dossick 2020). If more than one citation from the same author(s) and year are included, a letter (a, b, c, etc.) should be added after the year to clarify which is being referenced: (e.g. Chinowsky 2020a). All citations should be included in a list, titled “References” at the end of the text. Citations should be ordered alphabetically, then chronologically for authors with more than one publication with the earliest first, then by letter if more than one paper was from the same year.

EPOJ Pronoun Usage

The Journal seeks to maintain gender neutral language that avoids making  assumptions about the gender of persons both generic and specific.  For  example, when talking about roles in the industry such as project  manager or project executives in general terms, an author would avoid  saying "he/she", "his/hers" or "him/her" when talking about these  roles.  Instead, when  writing about generic roles, authors should use  the generic third-person singular pronoun "they/them" to refer to a  person whose gender is not known.  This use of the pronouns has been  endorsed by the Merriam-Webster's Dictionary as well as academic style  and grammar guidelines such as the APA Style (https://apastyle.apa.org/style-grammar-guidelines/grammar/singular-they) and Chicago Manual of Style (https://www.chicagomanualofstyle.org/).   Note: some style guidelines suggest avoiding the use of pronouns if  possible.  If the author or authors need to use pronouns, our guidelines  are as follows.  If the author is reporting on a specific person, then  identified pronouns are appropriate.  If the author or authors do not  know the identified gender of the person or are using generic roles,  they or them should be used. 
For example,  for generic use:
Avoid:  "When a project manager considers the schedule, he should think about long lead times." 
Recommended revision: "When a project manager considers the schedule, they should think about long lead times."  OR "Project managers should consider long lead times when considering the schedule."
Recommended for a known person:  "When we interviewed the project engineer for Case Study 2, she thought it was a successful project..."
If  you do not know the self-identified gender, it is still appropriate to  use the generic third-person pronoun when writing about a specific  person:  "When we interviewed the project engineer for Case Study 2, they thought it was a successful project..."  OR avoid using a pronoun "In a  Case Study 2 interview, the project engineer reported that the project  was successful.  

Other items to include:

Author information – authors should include their full name and university or company affiliation where the research was conducted; ORCID identifiers are welcome. The corresponding author should be identified and should include an email address for correspondence. To ensure a double blind peer-review, the review system will hide this information from reviewers when it is sent out for review. 

Abstract - The abstract should inform the readers of the purpose of the research or research question being answered, how the research was performed, and summarize the primary results and conclusions. The abstract should not explain the structure or organization of the paper. The abstract should be a maximum of 300 words.

Keywords – authors are encouraged to identify 3-5 keywords to make papers easier to discover

Funding details and Disclosure Statement – please provide all details required by your funding or grant-awarding agencies. If any financial benefit has been developed based upon the application of the presented research, the authors disclose it in the text.

Figures – figures in the manuscript should be high quality images (recommended 300 dpi or higher) and should be included directly in the text of the manuscript, adjacent to the appropriate text. All figures should have captions below the figure, briefly describing the content of the figure.

Tables – information in tables should not be repeated in the text of the manuscript and should be included directly in the text of the manuscript, adjacent to the corresponding text. All tables should have above the table, briefly describing the content so readers can understand the data without reference to the text.

Equations – any equations included should be directly included and numbered.

Units – please use SI units. If the units used in the research are not natively in SI, please provide the converted SI value and unit in parenthesis after the original units.

Third-party materials – if you would like to include material in the manuscript for which you do not own the copyright you will need to obtain and provide written permission from the owner.

Corrections

If there are concerns about correcting, revising or retracting articles after publication, the authors or interested parties should contact the Editor in Chief to discuss the concerns and request the corrections. There are no time limits on submitting concerns regarding the accuracy and appropriateness of publications. The editor in chief will review the issue, will work with the interested parties to develop an appropriate action (retraction, correction), and will work with the EPOJ publisher to implement the action. 

Data Disclosure Requirements

Please see the 'Data and Reproducibility' section on our Journal Policies page.