Sustainable Marine Structures

Focus and Scope

Sustainable Marine Structures aims to provide a medium for the publication of latest original research papers that offers a rapid review and publication that freely disseminates research findings in the areas of Marine Structures Mechanics, Coastal Monitoring and Forecasting and more.

The journal also focuses on the issues of limiting human-caused damage to marine ecosystems from the development of ocean and coastal areas and on the utilization and conservation of ocean resources.

The scope of the papers in this journal includes, but is not limited to:

• Ocean Sustainability
• Disaster Prevention and Risks
  Flooding, Tsunami, Storm Surge, Cyclone, Earthquake, Volcano, Seiche
• Ocean Bio-resource Utilization and Conservation
• Ocean Space Utilization
• Ocean Renewable Energy
• Deep-sea Mining
• Aquaculture and Ocean Fish farming
• Ocean Carbon Capture, Utilisation and Storage
• Materials for Ocean and Offshore Structures
  (- Sustainable Materials for Maritime Sector)
• Marine Structures Design, Mechanics, Operation, Monitoring, and Maintenance
  Floating Structures
  Fixed Structures
  Mega Structures
  Special Purpose Vessels
  Multi-body Structures
  Marine Risers and Cables
  Mooring systems and Equipment
• Maritime Decarbonisation
• Sustainable Ports
• Sustainable Arctic Technologies
• Offshore Hydrogen Production & Storage
• Recycling for Maritime Sector

Section Policies

Articles

Open Submissions

Indexed

Peer Reviewed

Review

Open Submissions

Indexed

Peer Reviewed

Editorial

Open Submissions

Indexed

Peer Reviewed

Short Communication

Open Submissions

Indexed

Peer Reviewed

Open Access Policy

This journal provides immediate Open Access to its content as it believes that making research freely available to the public which helps promoting the research results benefiting the scholarly community.

• 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.

Peer Review Process

Manuscripts submitted the journal will be subject to a rigorous double-blind peer review process. Reviewers and authors remained anonymous throughout the process. This allows the journal to maintain a high standard of publication, both in terms of academic writing as well as the integrity of the research content.

When the manuscripts reach the editorial office of the journal, the managing editor first conducts a preliminary check of the article for plagiarism, match the journal's Aims and Scope, and other the basic requirements of the journal. The manuscript may be returned to the author without further consideration should the preliminary check yield unsatisfactory results.

For manuscripts that pass the preliminary check, independent expert reviewers will be chosen according to their availability, expertise, suitability to the research topic of the manuscript and have no conflict of interest with the manuscript(please see Reviewer Responsibilities). Reviewers may be selected from the editorial board members, reviewers team, or external reviewers.

Reviewers submit their review comments of the manuscript along with their recommendation (Accepted, Revisions Required, Resubmit for Review, Rejected). Peer reviews are not published.

The Editor-in-Chief and/or the Associate Editor(s) will make the final decision based on the comments of the reviewers. Receive comments from at least 2 reviewers.

• Preliminary check usually takes about a week;

• Peer review usually takes 3-4 weeks;

• Authors are given 10-14 days for minor revisions;
• Authors are given 14-30 days for major revisions;

If the author cannot submit the revised manuscript by the deadline, please send an email via sms@nassg.org to apply for an extension.

The Editing(Production) stage consists of copyediting, proofreading, layout editing, and scheduling the accepted paper for publication. The Author’s participation continues to be crucial at this stage to ensure that all amendments made do not affect the integrity of the manuscript content and/or mar its readability.

Upon publication, a Digital Object Identifier (DOI) is registered for the paper, and the paper is made publically accessible.

Appeals can be made for a rejected manuscript. Requests for appeal must be submitted to contact@nassg.org and accompanied by point-by-point responses to reviewer comments in order to be considered for reevaluation.

Authorship

The journal follows the ICMJE recommends that authorship be based on the following 4 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.

The consent of all authors, as well as related authorities/institutions has been received prior to the submission of the manuscript.

The order of the authors (as to be reflected on the published article) has been established. The adding, deleting, changing the order of authors once the manuscript has been accepted for publication would have to be accompanied by a signed statement of consent of all authors.

All conflicts of interest/financial support have been declared.

Publication Frequency

The Sustainable Marine Structures is a biannual publication.

Article Processing Charges (APC)

As an open-access journal, all articles published in Sustainable Marine Structures are accessible electronically from the journal website without the need for subscription fees or other forms of payment from the readers. In order to ensure our content is freely available for the benefit of a wider audience while uncompromising our journal quality, an Article Processing Charge (APC) is applicable to all authors who wish to submit their articles to the journal. The APC is intended to cover the underlying costs of article processing, such as peer-review, copyediting, typesetting, publishing, content depositing and archiving processes. Those charges are applicable only to authors whose manuscripts have been successfully accepted after peer-review.

At Nan Yang Academy of Sciences Pte Ltd., we strongly believe that the APC should not become a barrier in the publication process. A range of discounts or waivers are offered to authors who are not able to cover the APC. Authors can write in to apply for a waiver and requests will be considered on a case-by-case basis.

APC Payment

Payments for APC of this journal can be made through our online PayPal payment gateway.

Payment Collection information

Company Name: Nan Yang Academy of Sciences Pte Ltd 
Bank Name:Oversea-Chinese Banking Corporation Limited 
Bank Address:OCBC Centre floor 9,65 Chulia Street, Singapore 049513 
Swift Code: OCBCSGSG 
Account No (USD).: 503425225301 
Account No (SGD).:712623982001
BRANCH CODE:XXX
CHIPS UID:010275
COUNTRY:SINGAPORE(SG)
CITY:SINGAPORE
ZIP:049513

Language

The journal is published in the English language.

Authors should ensure that all submitted manuscripts are written in clear, coherent, and precise English in order to optimize its readability.

Authors are welcome to contact Nan Yang Academy of Sciences Pte Ltd. for options should their submissions require translation. Additional charges may apply.

Indexing & Archiving

Indexing

Sustainable Marine Structures (SMS) is indexed/ included by :

Google Scholar

Crossref

CNKI Scholar

Scilit

BASE

WorldCat

Archives

The contents of Sustainable Marine Structures are archived and preserved by Portico.

Editorial Policies

The journal adheres to the Principles of Transparency and Best Practice in Scholarly Publishing identified by Committee on Publication Ethics (COPE), Directory of Open Access Journals (DOAJ), Open Access Scholarly Publishing Association (OASPA) and World Association of Medical Editors (WAME), and strictly adheres to the COPE’s Core Practice guidance.

We believe that the editorial decision-making process should be independent of all commercial concerns.

Editors should not make any editorial decisions or be involved in the editorial process  if they have any conflict of interest with a manuscript submitted to the journal.

All manuscripts submitted to Sustainable Marine Structures 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 Sustainable Marine Structures 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).

Editors must not misappropriate the contents of the manuscript

A manuscript would not be considered if it has been published or is currently under consideration for publication in any other journals. In the cover letter, authors must state that neither the manuscript nor any significant part of it is under consideration for publication elsewhere or has appeared elsewhere in a manner that could be construed as a prior or duplication of the same work. The authors are required to notify the editorial team if the findings and data in their submissions have been presented in conferences.

Reviewer Responsibilities

Peer reviews are conducted as a double-blind process via our Open Journal System (OJS). As an editor’s and/or reviewer’s comments will determine the acceptance or rejection of manuscripts, these comments play an important role in the peer-review process.

Reviews should be conducted in a fair and objective manner. Remarks and suggestions should not contain insults or criticism directed at the author as opposed to the manuscript.

The peer review should not be seen as an opportunity to appropriate the author’s ideas or data.

Conflicts of interest

We follow Ethical guidelines for peer reviewers by COPE.  Reviewers should:

Ensure you declare all potential competing, or conflicting, interests. If you are unsure about a potential competing interest that may prevent you from reviewing, do raise this.
Competing interests may be personal, financial, intellectual, professional, political or religious in nature.
If you are currently employed at the same institution as any of the authors or have been recent (eg, within the past 3 years) mentors, mentees, close collaborators or joint grant holders, you should not agree to review.
In addition, you should not agree to review a manuscript just to gain sight of it with no intention of submitting a review, or agree to review a manuscript that is very similar to one you have in preparation or under consideration at another journal.

How to peer review for the journal?  Reviewers are advised to adhere to the following:

  Reviewed articles and their contents should be kept strictly confidential.

  Reviews should be objective and constructive, personal criticisms are to be avoided, the feedback provided by your review will help the authors improve their manuscript.

  Promptness in response: Reviewers should inform the journal if you are unable to take part in the peer review of a particular manuscript. If you feel qualified to judge a particular manuscript and are able to submit your comments before the deadline given by the journal, please click Agree to Review on the system and be sure to inform the journal promptly if your circumstances change and you cannot fulfil your original agreement or if you require an extension. 

 Refrain from suggesting that authors include citations to your (or an associate’s) work merely to increase citation counts or to enhance the visibility of your or your associate’s work; suggestions must be based on valid academic or technological reasons.
 Do not intentionally prolong the review process, either by delaying the submission of your review or by requesting unnecessary additional information from the journal or author.

 If a submission contains supplementary materials, the reviewers are also required to evaluate them at the same level as the content of the main manuscript.

  Possible areas of focus while conducting the review of manuscripts:

      Potential ethical concerns

          Potential research misconduct (eg. Data fabrication/manipulation)

          Potential author misconduct (eg. Plagiarism, redundant publication)

          Necessary ethical approval and/or consent, and is the research ethical?

      Does the manuscript fit within the stated scope of the journal?

      Are there novel methods?

      Are the data valid?

      Are the conclusions sound?

      Technical errors

      Logical errors (fallacies, lapses in logic, etc.)

      Language errors that mar the clarity of the text

      References

          Suitability of references used

          Other relevant research which should be referenced in the paper

          Uncited content

Plagiarism

Plagiarism means the use of any material and ideas developed or created by another person without acknowledging the original source. To avoid any form of plagiarism, each manuscript newly submitted to the Sustainable Marine Structures will be checked regarding plagiarism using iThenticate.

All submitted manuscripts received by the Editorial Office will be checked by a professional in-house Managing Editor to determine whether they are properly prepared and whether they follow the ethical policies of the journal. Manuscripts that do not fit the journal's ethics policy or do not meet the standards of the journal will be rejected before peer-review. Manuscripts that are not properly prepared will be returned to the authors for revision and resubmission. After these checks, the Managing Editor will consult the journals’ Editor-in-Chief or Associate Editors to determine whether the manuscript fits the scope of the journal and whether it is scientifically sound. No judgment on the potential impact of the work will be made at this stage. Reject decisions at this stage will be verified by the Editor-in-Chief.

Publishing Ethics

Sustainable Marine Structures requests all members involved in the journal publishing process to adhere to the Code of Conduct and to its Best Practice Guidelines by Committee on Publication Ethics (COPE).

The 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 violations include(but are not limited to):

• Plagiarism
• Falsification of research
• Data fabrication
• Improprieties of authorship
• Misappropriation of the ideas of others
• Duplicate publication
• Material failure to comply with legislative and regulatory requirements affecting research
• Undisclosed competing interests

The journal adopts iThenticate to detect possible plagiarism, which ensures the originality of submitted content. We encourage all reviewers to report potential misconduct of the manuscripts they reviewed. We also encourage all readers to contact us to report potential misconduct related to published content. The journal deals with all allegations of potential misconduct in a serious manner based on the COPE flowchart.

In cases of suspected misconduct and ethical violation, the Editorial Office will 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 nass-sms@nassg.org within 28 days of the decision date.

Submission Withdrawal Policy

In Sustainable Marine Structures, withdrawal of a submission refers to the removal of a new submission, a paper currently under peer-review, an accepted paper, or an Article in Press from the online submission system. Removal of a formally published article is known as retraction.

-Author-initiated submission withdrawal

If authors change their mind and decide not to pursue publication of papers with the journal, they must write a letter addressed to our editors at nass-sms@nassg.org, explaining the reason(s) of submission withdrawal. Consents of all co-authors must be obtained for author-initiated submission withdrawal. The decision to withdraw a submission would eventually rest with the editors, including the Editor-in-Chief.

It is relatively more difficult in withdrawing a new submission paper that has been processed for peer-review or is under peer-review compared to withdrawing a new submission because the editors and reviewers have expended much time and energy in editorial process and manuscript evaluation, respectively.To withdraw a paper that has been processed for peer-review, authors should clearly argue their case on scientific reasons; only valid and sound reasons will be accepted. Once the approval of submission withdrawal is granted, the submission will be removed from the journal’s online submission system, and a confirmation email of submission withdrawal will be sent to the authors.

In general, the editors of Sustainable Marine Structures consider the following as *unethical and unreasonable reasons* of withdrawing a submission:

*Unaware of the Article Processing Charge payable after paper acceptance (or reluctant to pay Article Processing Charge). Authors are advised to find out the publication fees associated with the journal before making a decision to submit. It is unethical to submit and proceed with the editorial process for a submission under consideration for publication if authors do not have plans of paying the Article Processing Charge upon acceptance.

*Do not want to make all research data or findings available to the journal. Before a submission is made, authors are responsible to check whether the research data or findings presented in manuscript are compatible with their desired journal and/or type of submission they intend to make. There are no defined criteria as to how much data or findings should be published in a paper but it is our belief that marine structures, just like other agronomy, agricultural engineering and seed science, take sufficient data to make precise and accurate interpretation from experiments. Thus, it is in authors’ best interest to provide, present and publish all relevant data and findings.

Wanting to submit to a higher- or lower-impact journal. It’s the authors’ responsibility to vet the journal background before making a decision to submit. Making a submission to the journal is comparable to admitting that the quality and standard of the submission match with that of the journal.

In the event that authors insist to withdraw submission on unethical and unreasonable grounds (see the above-mentioned *unethical and unreasonable reasons*), they will be demanded to pay submission withdrawal fee that is charged at 30% of the Article Processing Charge. Once the payment of submission withdrawal fee is made, the submission will be removed from the journal’s online submission system, and a confirmation email of submission withdrawal will be sent to the authors.

-Withdrawal of accepted paper and Article in Press

Authors should note that any amounts of paid Article Processing Charge will not be refunded if their accepted papers or Articles in Press are withdrawn on the grounds of academic misconducts and ethical violations in research and publication.

Correction notice
A Correction notice will be issued when it is necessary to correct an error or omission which can impact the interpretation of the article.

• Correct the online article.
• Issue a separate correction notice electronically linked back to the corrected version.

Conflict of Interest

All authors must disclose all relationships or interests in their manuscript any financial or other substantive conflict of interest that might have influenced the presented results or their interpretation.

Authors can disclose potential conflicts of interest via the online submission system during the submission process. Declarations regarding conflicts of interest can also be stated in the cover letter. A statement in the manuscript must include in a separate section “Conflicts of Interest” placed just before the reference list. The statement should reflect all the collected potential conflict of interest disclosures in the form. If authors who have nothing to declare are encouraged to add "No conflict of interest was reported by all authors" in this section.

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 nass-sms@nassg.org.

Disclaimer

Sustainable Marine Structures 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. Sustainable Marine Structures 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.