Ethics & Copyright

Publication of an article in a peer-reviewed journal is an essential model for the African and Mediterranean Journal of Architecture and Urbanism (AMJAU), ISSN: 2665-7953. Standards and best practices of ethical behavior expected for all parties: the author, the journal editor-in-chief, the peer reviewer, and the editorial board.

In order to meet the above requirements and respond to the stakeholders needs, the Editorial Board has decided to ensure regular publishing of the Journal issues. Indeed, the AMAU shall publish two regular issues per year respectively in July and December.

The African and Mediterranean Journal of Architecture and Urbanism (AMJAU) is a major knowledge-sharing platform for researchers, policy makers and practitioners in the Architecture and Urbanism. Contributions and papers are of interest to a broad readership. The multidisciplinary nature of the journal will endear it to scholars and policy makers with interest in architecture, urban planning, territorial planning, housing, landscape, cultural heritage, civil and environmental engineering, geography, sociology, and other related disciplines. 

African and Mediterranean Journal of Architecture and Urbanism (AMJAU) is an open access journal and in addition, no fees are required for the processing and publication of articles.

The African and Mediterranean Journal of Architecture and Urbanism (AMJAU) is an international peer-reviewed journal that publishes original research contributions that address architecture, urban planning and related disciplines. All contributions are subject to initial evaluation by the editors and members of the editorial board. If the contribution is suitable for further consideration, it will be subject to peer review by independent, anonymous expert referees.

Revised papers are treated confidentially by members of the editorial board, members of the international scientific committee and reviewers.

Authors are required, for all submitted papers, to participate in this peer review process and follow the publication guidelines. They are required to make the requested changes and correct any errors identified. 

Knowledge production and learning in The African and Mediterranean Journal of Architecture and Urbanism (AMJAU) - a peer-reviewed publication - will be enhanced through professionalism in its delivery and the quality of authors published. Authors will be expected to adhere to high standards of ethical behaviour in their papers.

Authors must follow the journal's instructions and are bound by the legal requirements that will then be in force regarding defamation, copyright infringement, and plagiarism.

The standards are guided by the following general principles:

• Authorship:  Authorship will be limited to those who have made a significant contribution to the conception, design, interpretation or wiring of the manuscript.

• Acknowledgements: All sources will be properly acknowledged.
• Disclosure of conflict of interest: Submission of an article will include disclosure of all relationships (if any) that might be viewed as a conflict of interest.
• Data access and retention: The Editor(s) may request access to an article’s raw data for review and the author(s) should be prepared to provide public access.
• Multiple or concurrent publication: The author(s) shall generally not publish manuscripts describing the same research in more than one journal or primary publication.
• Significant error or inaccuracy: When an author identifies a significant error or inaccuracy in his/her own published work, it is the author’s responsibility to notify the Editor or publisher and to cooperate in retracting or correcting the paper.
• Free, Prior Informed Consent: It is the responsibility of the author to get free, prior informed consent for publishing of content that may require it.

Authors must ensure that the manuscript is original and that where the work and/or words of others have been used, they have been properly cited. Authors must declare that their manuscript is not being considered for publication elsewhere and has not been copied or plagiarized in whole or in part from other articles. Regarding the publication policy adopted, the journal has no tolerance policy towards plagiarism and copyright violations. A text similarity of less than 15% is acceptable by the journal. However, if the identical text is a continuous paragraph of copied material, it should be considered significant level plagiarized text. Text similarity due to commonly used phrases, terminologies and/or methods in a manuscript is obviously not considered plagiarism. Authors are encouraged to ensure that all materials used are properly cited in-text and that their reference lists are correctly declared. If a similarity percentage of more than 25% of the manuscript content is detected, it is considered a high percentage of plagiarism. If such a plagiarism score is observed at any stage of the publication/review process, the affected submission may be excluded.

African and Mediterranean Journal of Architecture and Urbanism (AMJAU) is available under the terms of the Creative Commons Attribution-NonCommercial-NoDerivatives 4.0 International License (CC BY-NC-ND 4.0) https://creativecommons. org/licenses/by-nc-nd/4.0/ . Open access authors retain copyright in their articles. All open access articles are published under the terms of the Creative Commons Attribution License, which permits unrestricted use, distribution, and reproduction in any medium, provided the original work is properly cited. The use of general descriptive names, trade names, trademarks, etc. in this publication, even if not specifically identified, does not imply that applicable laws or regulations do not protect such names. Although the advice and information contained in this review is true and accurate as of the date of publication, neither the authors nor the publisher assumes any legal responsibility for any errors or omissions.

The African and Mediterranean Journal of Architecture and Urbanism (AMJAU) has an Editorial Board, and editorial staff, and an International Scientific Committee including some Emeritus Professors in Architecture and Urbanism.

 The Editorial Board 

The Editorial Board are peers whose judgements are highly valued and will set the policy and guidelines of AMJAU. Board members provide oversight, prestige and visibility of the Journal in academic and policymaking institutions. They will also endorse the Journal to authors, readers and subscribers and provide support and advice to the Editorial Staff. They determine the purpose of the journal and its administrative structure. They shall advise the Editor-in-Chief on trends of editorial policy and suggest overall operational guidelines for improving the content of the Journal.

The Board Chair and Editor in Chief select and choose eminent experts at the National, African, Mediterranean and International level to be part of the Scientific Committee of the journal. The Editorial Board is responsible for rejecting and accepting original manuscripts. The members should have no conflict of interest regarding the contributions they reject or accept.

 International Scientific Committee

The International Scientific Committee is composed of African, and Mediterranean, and international professors and experts in the field of Architecture and Urbanism. The Committee members discuss the guidelines, general rules and topics of the Journal. They are part of the review process and are responsible for encouraging and motivating potential authors to submit papers to the Journal.

The International Scientific Committee members ensure a rigorous process so that any scientific material published has the appropriate level of scientific merit regarding the topics of the African and Mediterranean Journal of Architecture and Urbanism.

The International Scientific Committee members could be selected for one or several issues of the Journal including the special issues.

 Editorial Staff

The Editor in Chief is the head of the Editorial staff.  He works with the Editorial Team to develop operational tools for the Journal. Among other responsibilities, Editor-in Chief and his team develop a framework to deliver each Issue of the Journal. This will involve decisions and activities related to:

-       manuscript submissions and solicitation of content;

-        peer review selection;

-       enforcement of professional and editorial standards;

-       handling of manuscripts and conformity with established guidelines;

-       standards to be used in judging articles for inclusion;

-       format of the Journal; 

-   hosting/printing of the Journal and the accompanying MoU that spells out expectations;

-       Terms of agreement with authors.