Focus and Scope

     Eco Cities (EC) is an Open Access journal, which provides a forum for studies in the field of urban ecology and sustainability. The submitted manuscript will go through a rigorous double blind peer-reviewed process. Eco-city is a social, economic, cultural and natural composite ecosystem with high level of synergy and harmony, which has the function of material recycling, social harmony and synergy between human and nature.
     Eco Cities aims to respond and adapt to the newest developments in scholarly publishing and at the same time, addresses highly relevant scientific and societal topics. This journal makes research outputs publicly available and allows for different types of articles including original research articles, review articles, book reviews, editorials, commentaries, letters, perspectives, case reports, etc.

     The journal will specifically address the following topics but not limited to:

•      Ecosystem services
•      Sustainability ecology
•      Urban ecology
•      Urban development

Section Policies

Articles

Open Submissions

Indexed

Peer Reviewed

Original research article

Original research articles should contain completely new principal research testifying major contributions to the field. The study should represent new findings or discoveries in a subject area that were not published before. The report may contain significant findings, methodology importance and considerable evidence to the conclusions.

Open Submissions

Indexed

Peer Reviewed

Review article

Reviews articles are summarized descriptions of recent findings and significant developments at particular subject area of research considering the Journal’s scope. They should include critical assessments of novel technologies, evaluation of subject advancement, elucidate unresolved questions, comparative analysis with a substantial coverage of previous works and highlight future prospects. Although there are no restrictions with the length and content of a review, authors should consider drawing reader’s attention and interest with quality information.

Open Submissions

Indexed

Peer Reviewed

Editorial

Editorial reflects the opinion of an Editorial Board member or staff for particular Journal highlighting recent changes, concerned issues or announcements in relevance to the journal. This may include editorial management and policies.

Open Submissions

Indexed

Peer Reviewed

Invited Review Article

Invited Review Articles usually come from the authors who should receive the submission invitation from the editor-in-chief or editors. The submission is the theme summary on a field or theme.

Open Submissions

Indexed

Peer Reviewed

Case Report

Case Report summarizes the execution of a collaborative research program that is directly related to the advancement of Eco Cities.

Open Submissions

Indexed

Peer Reviewed

Letter

Letters: it may include some comments from reader(s) about individual articles. These letters must be constructive and contribute to the development of individual articles published or the entire journal. Letters containing new ideas, supporting data or data criticizing the article may be subjected to peer-review (determined on a case-by-case basis by the journal's editorial team). Authors should specify the intended recipient of the letters i.e. editor-in-chief or stating the specific author(s) name.

Open Submissions

Indexed

Peer Reviewed

Perspective

Perspectives: it contains the author's personal opinions on a subject/topic. Unlike Reviews, Perspective articles may cover a more specific, narrow part of the field. However, these are still required to uphold the spirit of academia to be objective as well as aim to initiate or further discussions and novel experimental procedures in the field.

Open Submissions

Indexed

Peer Reviewed

Perspective

Perspectives: it contains the author's personal opinions on a subject/topic. Unlike Reviews, Perspective articles may cover a more specific, narrow part of the field. However, these are still required to uphold the spirit of academia to be objective as well as aim to initiate or further discussions and novel experimental procedures in the field.

Open Submissions

Indexed

Peer Reviewed

Peer Review Process

All papers submitted to Eco Cities are subjected to a stringent double blind peer review process. This is to uphold the high quality of papers published in EC and ensure that the reporting of research work is truthful and accurate.

• Upon submission, the article is reviewed by EC in-house editors to assess its suitability for the journal based on the editorial policy and procedural guidelines.
• The Editor-in-Chief (EIC) carefully evaluates each manuscript to determine if its topic and content are suitable for consideration.
• The accepted manuscripts are then assigned by the EIC to the associate editors according to their respective areas of expertise.
• The associate editor selects reviewers from the editorial board or external reviewers who are suitably qualified to assess the paper.
• Reviewers are asked to evaluate the manuscript’s originality, methodology, contribution to the literature, presentation of results and support for the conclusions, and appropriate referencing of previous relevant studies
• Post-evaluation by the reviewers, the manuscript is sent to the associate editor who makes one of the following recommendations: accept, accept with minor revision, or reject.
• The manuscript is then passed to the EIC who makes the final decision.
• If EIC suggests minor revisions, authors are given a maximum of 30 days to revise and resubmit the article.
• If EIC suggests major revisions, authors are given a maximum of 90 days to revise and resubmit the article.
• After re-submission of the revised manuscript, the above steps are repeated before the paper is accepted for publication.
• Authors of rejected submissions are advised to make an appeal in writing to editorial-ec@apacsci.com
• Written appeals should include specific reasons for the appeal and point-by-point response to the reviewers' suggestions and criticisms.
• Decisions made on appeals by the EIC are final and no further considerations will be made.

Publication Frequency

The publication frequency of Eco Cities is bi-annual.

Open Access 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.

• Higher Visibility, Availability and Citations – free and unlimited accessibility of the publication over the internet without any restrictions increases citation of the article
• Ease of search – publications are easily searchable in search engines and indexing databases
• Rapid Publication – accepted papers are immediately published online

All published content is distributed under the terms of the Creative Commons Attribution 4.0 International License (CC-BY 4.0), permitting use, distribution, and reproduction in any medium under the condition that the original work is properly cited.

Publishing Ethics

Asia Pacific Academy of Science Pte. Ltd. requests all members involved in the journal publishing process to adhere to the Core Practices on publication ethics as stipulated by Committee on Publication Ethics (COPE) 

The publisher strictly adheres to the guidelines and best practices, which include Recommendations for the Conduct, Reporting, Editing, and Publication of Scholarly Work in  Medical Journals from the International Committee of Medical Journals Editors (ICMJE) and the Principles of Transparency and Best Practice in Scholarly Publishing developed by Committee on Publication Ethics (COPE), Directory of Open Access Journals (DOAJ), Open Access Scholarly Publishers Association (OASPA) and World Association of Medical Editors (WAME).

The publisher journal editors take all possible misconducts seriously. The Editors, authors or readers can forward their concerns to the journal if they find out that the description in a submitted article may constitute an academic fraud, research misconduct or publication malpractice. The concerns or complaints on the possible allegations submitted to the journal will be dealt with promptly and appropriately according to the procedure set out in the COPE flowchart on complaints. The complainant may direct all inquiries and correspondence to the publisher at editorial-ec@apacsci.com.

The Eco Cities (EC) adopts a zero-tolerance policy concerning any academic misconducts and ethical violations in research and publication regardless of the severity of these issues. The violations include plagiarism, falsification of research, data fabrication, submitting manuscripts of others as one’s own, submission of same manuscript to different publication venues at the same time and breached intellectual property rights. In cases of suspected misconduct and ethical violation, a panel will be formed to investigate the allegation. If the allegation is supported by evidence, the submitted manuscript in question will be declined for consideration in the journal and all authors will be informed in this regard. A retraction initiated by authors or by the journal is required to take place if the paper has already been published, and the retraction will be made public. Authors of the work in question will receive the panel’s Decision via email and all appeals regarding the decision will have to be made to the publisher at editorial-ec@apacsci.com within 30 days of the decision date.

Authorship

Authorship of a scholarly paper should be limited to individuals who have contributed substantially to its intellectual content. Participation solely in the acquisition of funding or general supervision of the research group is not sufficient for authorship. All authors should hold the responsibility of fairly evaluating their respective roles and their co-authors’ roles in the project. This is to ensure that authorship is attributed according to a fixed standard in all publications for which they will be listed as authors.

In order to be listed as an author for a paper, one should have contributed sufficiently to the project. A co-author is expected to have contributed to some component of the work which led to the paper or be involved in the interpretation of its results. A maximum of two corresponding authors are allowed for the associated responsibilities. All authors should have a say in the final approval of the version to be published, in addition to reviewing the final manuscript prior to submission.

Individuals who do not meet the above requirements, but have provided a valuable contribution to the work, may be acknowledged for their contribution as appropriate to the publication.

Changes to Authorship

Any addition, deletion or rearrangement of author names in the authorship list should be made only before the manuscript is accepted for publication. The corresponding author should provide the reasons for the change in authorship list and the proof of written confirmation from all authors (including the existing authors, author(s) to be added and/or removed) agreeing with such change, to the Editorial Office.

The requests for authorship changes need to be approved by the Editorial Office before any changes can be made.

Conflict of Interest

Conflicts of interest may exist when professional judgements concerning a primary interest have the possibility of being influenced by a secondary interest (e.g.: financial gains). It is to be noted that even perceptions of conflicts of interest are as important as the actual conflicts of interest.

Any agreements with study sponsors (for profit or non-profit), which interfere with the authors’ access to the study data, ability to analyze or interpret the data and publish manuscripts independently according to their own decision, should be avoided by authors at all costs.

A declaration of interests for all authors must be received before an article can be reviewed and accepted for publication.

Misconduct policy

Duplicate Submission

Manuscripts submitted to EC’s journals should:

1) not have been published before;

2) not concurrently be submitted elsewhere.

If part of a manuscript has been published or will be published elsewhere, the authors must let the editors know in a cover letter. If duplicate submission is detected during peer review, the manuscript may be rejected. If it is detected after publication, the manuscript may be retracted.

Plagiarism

Authors are advised to observe high standards in the aspect of publication ethics. Any plagiarism (fabrication or falsification of data) are strictly unacceptable practices in EC, including duplicate publication of the author’s work without proper citation.

Every manuscript submitted for publication is checked for plagiarism via CrossCheck (powered by iThenticate) after submission and before being sent to the editor for editorial review. Any detection of overlapping and similar texts in the manuscripts submitted will be investigated promptly and may lead to the manuscript being rejected.

Language

The language used in manuscripts submitted to Eco Cities is English. Authors whose first language is not English may want to have their manuscripts professionally edited before the final submission to ensure that the academic content of the paper is fully understood by its prospective readers.

Errata & Withdrawal Policy

Errata

All publisher-introduced changes are highlighted to the author at the proof stage and any errors are ideally identified by the author and corrected by the publisher before final publication. Any errors in published articles discovered by readers, authors, editors, etc., please contact the journal edito. Whioce will only instigate a corrigendum to a published article after receiving approval and instructions from the editor.

Withdrawal

If the author decides to withdraw an article that has already been submitted to the journal, he/she would be required to pay a penalty fee (USD 200). Authors are advised to keep in mind that an article should only be withdrawn if the authors detect significant error or flaws, as it is not an acceptable practice to withdraw an article after it has been sent for peer review. The withdrawal process is considered to be complete once the author receives a confirmation of withdrawal from the Journal Editorial Office.

Indexing & Archiving

• All the articles published online will be archived by Portico for long-term digital preservation.

• Authors are encouraged to self-archive the final version of their published articles into institutional repositories (such as those listed in the Directory of Open Access Repositories).

• Authors are also encouraged to use the final PDF version published on the website of Wearable Technology.

Preprint policy

Authors are permitted to post their non-peer-reviewed original research manuscripts to preprint servers before submitting to Eco Cities. 

Authors are not allowed to post any versions of articles that have been revised as a result of peer review, accepted for publication or published in the journal on a preprint server. The manuscript whose corresponding preprint version has been indexed (e.g. in MEDLINE or PubMed) will not be considered.

We encourage formal citation of preprints in the reference list if appropriate.

Editorial Policies

Authors should read the “Author Guidelines” before making a submission, and make sure that the manuscripts were written in accordance to the style and specifications of the journal’s policy.

All manuscripts submitted to Eco Cities are subject to rigorous peer review. Prior to peer review process, the manuscripts will be screened for acceptable English language, novelty and relevance to the Focus and Scope of the journal.

Any manuscripts submitted to Eco Cities will be treated as confidential materials. The manuscripts will not be disclosed to anyone except individuals such as editorial staff, reviewers and editors who participate in the initial screening, review, processing and preparation of the manuscript for publication (if accepted).

A manuscript would not be accepted if it has been published or is currently under consideration for publication in any other journals. The authors are required to notify the editorial team if the findings and data in their submissions have been presented in conferences.

Disclaimer

This journal  is not liable to the statements, perspectives, and opinions contained in the published articles. The appearance of advertisements in the journal shall not be construed as a warranty, endorsement, or approval of the products or services advertised and/or the safety thereof. This journal and the Publisher disclaim responsibility for any injury to persons or property resulting from any ideas or products referred to in the articles or advertisements.

As an author, once submitting a manuscript, it means that you have be aware of all publishing policies & ethics,  and will strictly abide by them.

As a reviewer, once reviewing a manuscript, it means that you must be aware of the peer review policies, and proactively disclose of all potential conflicts of interest, and guarantee that an article will be judged fairly and objectively. 

Copyright and License

The authors shall retain the copyright of their work but allow the Publisher to publish, copy, distribute, and convey the work.

All articles published by Eco Cities are licensed under the Creative Commons International Licenses. Without any explicit request from the corresponding author during submission stage, a paper will be published under the Creative Commons Attribution 4.0 International License (CC BY 4.0) by default. The authors who would like to publish their work under a more accommodating license, i.e. Creative Commons Attribution-NonCommercial 4.0 International License (CC BY-NC 4.0), they should express explicit request during submission stage. Please include statement below in the Comments for the Editor column on the submission page:

The contributors or authors for this submission entitled “[MANUSCRIPT TITLE]”, i.e. [NAMES of ALL AUTHORS], have given their consents to alter the Creative Commons license to *CC BY-NC 4.0* under which this submission will be published in Eco Cities.

Advertising Policy

All advertisements are subject to approval to the Publisher. Advertisements must comply with the relevant regulations in the country where the advertisements appear. For more inquiries, please send email to editorial-ec@apacsci.com.

Article Processing Charges (APC)

Asia Pacific Academy of Science Pte. Ltd. publishes all its journals in Gold Open Access format. The scientific community and the general public have free of all restrictions on accessing (e.g., subscription) and free of many restrictions on using its contents as soon as it is published online. In order to defray our editorial and production costs, authors of the accepted articles are required to pay the article processing charges (APC is US $800). The charges will come from authors' institutes or research funding bodies.

 Eco Cities (EC) receives financial support from Beijing Chuncheng Education Publications Research Center, hence the APC is free for authors for the time being. The editorial office of EC expresses its sincere thanks to the sponsor.

Waiver Policy

For high-quality articles graded by our editorial board members and authors from low-income countries with difficulty to pay, EC will access in a case-by-case basis and may approve certain discount to ensure the publication of high-quality articles. EC reserves the rights to approve or decline any such request. Please contact: editorial-ec@apacsci.com.

Statement of Informed Consent

All papers submitted to our Journal should declare agreement with the following "statement of informed consent". Any paper lacking it will not be considered for publication. When informed consent has been obtained, it should be indicated in the published article.

Patients have a right to privacy that should not be infringed without informed consent. All information which could contribute to identify patients, including patients' names, initials, or hospital numbers, should not be published in written descriptions, photographs, etc., unless the information is essential for scientific purposes and the patient (or parent or guardian) gives explicit written informed consent for publication. For this purpose the manuscript should be shown to the patient before publication and specific and explicit informed consent should be obtained. Furthermore, individuals who provide writing assistance should be identified by the authors, and they must disclose the funding source for this assistance.

Identifying details should be omitted if they are not essential. However, since complete anonymity is difficult to achieve, informed consent should be obtained from each patient involved, if there is any doubt. If identifying characteristics are altered to protect anonymity, such as in genetic pedigrees, authors should provide assurance that alterations do not distort scientific meaning, and editors will note that.

Nonessential identifying details should be omitted. Informed consent should be obtained if there is any doubt that anonymity can be maintained. For example, masking the eye region in photographs of patients is inadequate protection of anonymity. If identifying characteristics are de-identified, authors should provide assurance that alterations do not distort scientific meaning, and editors will note that.

Statement of Human and Animal Rights

All papers submitted to this journal should declare agreement with the following "statement of human and animal rights". Any paper lacking it will not be considered for publication. Papers describing procedures involving humans or animals must include an explicit and easily identifiable statement pointing out that the procedures followed were in accordance with the ethical standards of the responsible committee on human experimentation (institutional and national) and with the Helsinki Declaration of 1975, as revised in 2000 and 2008. If any doubt exists as to whether the research was conducted in accordance with the Helsinki Declaration, the authors must explain the rationale for their approach, and then demonstrate that the institutional ethical committee explicitly approved the doubtful aspects of the study.

When reporting experiments on animals, authors should be asked to indicate whether the institutional and national guide for the care and use of laboratory animals was followed.