Papers submitted to the ISVS e-journal undergo a rigorous review process, with the intention to facilitate the authors to recognise the weaknesses in their scientific papers if any, and develop them up to the standards expected by the ISVS e-journal if possible. Once received, each paper is assigned an identity number. It is then vetted for compatibility with the broad area (not the narrrow definition of vernacular) within which the journal publishes: Architecture and Culture - vernacular practices in particular. In fact, vernacular practices in human settlements relate to architecture, crafts, performances, rituals, and numerous things people do in every-day life and the traditions associated with them. This means processes involving ordinary people, without professional interventions. If unrelated to this broad definition, the author is notified that the paper cannot be accepted for review. Original notification of acceptance for review or rejection is communicated within 2-3 days - within a week the most.
Once accepted for review, the paper is presented to two independant reviewers for close examination and for review comments on a structured review form (available below). Once the two reviews are received, they are compiled as one and sent to the authors with instructions to revise and develop the paper. The authors should revise the papers following the instructions to review and send the revised paper back to the Editor-in-Chief. The review recommendations could be either: 'reject', 'minor revisions', 'major revisions' or 'accepted as submitted'. The composite review is sent to the author within 3 weeks the most.
It should be noted, however, that ISVS e-journal has never received 'accepted as submitted' as a review recommendation. Almost all, often receive 'major revision' recommendations and some, occassionally, a 'minor revision'. If the revision is poor, it will then be returned to the author with further comments, some times with track change comments and edits too. This process continues until the paper is properly revised and developed if so possible. In the cases if the authors fail to develop the paper even after a few subsequent rounds of reviews and revisions, then the paper is rejected.
If the revisions are done up to the standards expected, then the paper is accepted for publication and move to final formatting, editing and check up. However, papers with poor language are not aaccepted, and it is the responsibility of the authors to have their linguistic issues sorted out, when the review indicates that there are language issues. ISVS e-journal cannot undertake to rectify them fully if they are extensive, although some minor editing is always done. Thus, the process takes time. Please note that the papers are placed in a queue as they are received. Reviews take time: Two to three weeks at least. Immediate or urgent publications are not possible. A more detailed description of this process can be accesssed from the link below.
To enable the potential authors and anyone interested to see how the papers progress through the review-revision process and to understand what the reviews are like, ISVS e-journal has published sample reviews of the three different styles, it employs to review the papers: separate reviews by two reviewers; A composite review compiled from two reviews and track change comments on the original paper itself from two reviewers (See the bottom of the side bar). A sample review for each issue of the year 2024 and 2025 have been published. The samples are selected randomly. However, all the reviews are available for scrutiny if so required, specifically by the indexing agencies, or any other legitimate authority. Please note that all the reviews are not published to save space and web-load, although they are available for scrutiny. Moreover, samples of "Peer-Review-Diologues" are also made available there. As can be seen, ISVS e-journal offers some of the most rigorous and comprehensive reviews to facilitate the authors to develop and revise the papers. They are both critical and instructive to help the authors to revise.
1. Nature of Paper Policies
a. ISVS e-journal publishes only research papers. This means that the papers must report rigorous scientific research conducted by the authors of which the results and findings are presented. Each paper must therefore follow the specified structure and most certainly have a research methodology explained clearly with all the details and a list of conclusions derived after analysing data. Essays, letters or any other forms of articles are not published. Please note that research papers are very different from essays. Research papers must follow a specific structure outlined in this website. An outline for the structure of a paper can be found here: click here.
b. ISVS e-journal publishes original manuscripts which should not have been published previously. They should not be under consideration by any other journal at the time they are submitted and reviewed by the ISVS e-journal.
c. ISVS e-journal has a zero-tolerance for plagiarism. Self-plagiarism is also not accepted. This means that no part of the research paper must be copy-pasted from any other written material including one's own dissertation, thesis or a previously published paper. All materials taken from other sources including data, figures and images must be duly acknowledged according to the academic publication standards.
d. The language of manuscripts should be English. Only British English is acceptable. Other native terms if used can be part of the text, and do not need to be italicised. However, they must be explained in English.
e. The papers should not preferably exceed 25 pages using Times New Roman 11 Point font in single line spacing. They should not be more than 1MB when saved as a PDF.
2. Authorship Policies
a. All authors must mention their institutional affiliations after the names, provide an email address and must also cite the ORCID numbers if an author has one. All those listed as authors should have agreed on the publication of the paper in the ISVS e-journal and must have actively contributed to its production. If there are more than two authors listed, please identify the contribution of each author at the end of the paper.
b. Authors must acknowledge funding and other support received in conducting the research as well as in preparing the paper. This must be mentioned at the end of the paper before the references.
c. When published, authors retain the copyright of their own paper, which can be used in any other publication as long as the original paper is properly cited. The papers can also be deposited in academic databases such as Academia Edu, ResearchGate or other databases managed by any other academic establishment. Please see below the copyright policy.
3. Paper Submission Policies
a. ISVS e-journal has only an e-mail submission system. Submit the complete paper with images embedded, and formatted as per the published template only to the editor@isvshome.com. There is no online submission system. Use the same e-mail address and accumulative emails to communicate with the Editor-in-Chief. Do not start a new email every time. Do not send to all the email addresses.
b. ISVS e-journal accepts only Microsoft Word: either .doc or .docx versions for submission. PDF files or any other forms are not accepted.
4. Open Access Policy
a. ISVS e-journal is open-access.
ISVS e-journal is an open access journal, which means that all the content is freely available without charge to the user or his/her institution. Users are allowed to read, download, copy, distribute, print, search, or link to the full texts of the articles, or use them for any other lawful purpose, without asking prior permission from the publisher, editor or the author. This is in accordance with the BOAI definition of open access. This also means that articles published in the ISVS e-journal are available and reusable worldwide free of charge and without restrictions immediately on publication, and remain so forever, through the repository at CROSSREF assigning a DOI: Digital Object Identifier.
5. Self-archiving Policy
a. By publishing in the ISVS e-journal, the authors keep the rights of self-archiving. Authors can archive the PDF version on their personal websites, their institution’s repositories or any non-commercial repository for personal use, internal institutional use or for permitted scholarly posting. However, it is recommended to use the final published version of the paper with the acknowledgement of the original source of publication as the ISVS e-journal and a link inserted to the published article in the journal website. An author can do so any time after the paper is published in the journal.
6. Publication Ethics Policy
a. The authors should follow the international standards of responsible research publication promoted by the Committee on Publication Ethics (COPE) cited below under 7-a at the end. The journal will take usual steps to identify and prevent the publication of papers where research misconduct may have occurred, including plagiarism, citation manipulation, and data falsification/fabrication. The papers submitted to the journal are checked using ‘Turnitin’ or other similar software as appropriate. An author submitting a paper is encouraged to submit a report from ‘Turnitin’ or other similar software to facilitate this process.
7. Conflicts of Interest Policy
a. The authors must declare if any one of them has a conflict of interest related to the research. Conflicts of interest comprise those which may not be fully apparent and which may influence the judgment of the author, the reviewers and the editors. They are those which may make a reasonable reader feel misled or deceived. They may be personal, commercial, political, academic or financial. “Financial” interests may include employment, research funding, stock or share ownership, payment for lectures or travel, consultancies and company support for staff. The authors, reviewers and editors should consult Committee on Publication Ethics (COPE) GUIDELINES ON GOOD PUBLICATION PRACTICE about how to act if any conflict of interest is suspected. These guidelines can be accessed here.click here.
8. Copyright Policies
An author who publishes in the ISVS e-journal agrees to the following terms:
a. The author retains the copyright and grants the journal the right of first publication of the work simultaneously licensed under the Creative Commons Attribution-ShareAlike 4.0. cited below at 8-d. This is a license that allows others to share the work with an acknowledgment of the work's authorship and initial publication in a journal.
b. The author is able to enter into separate, additional contractual arrangements for the non-exclusive distribution of the journal's published version of the work (e.g., post it to an institutional repository or publish it in a book) with the acknowledgment of its initial publication in this journal.
c. The author is permitted and encouraged to post his/her work online (e.g., in institutional repositories or on theirwebsite) after it has been published, as it can lead to productive exchanges, as well as greater citation of the published work.
d. Read more about the Creative Commons Attribution-ShareAlike 4.0 Licence here: https://creativecommons.org/licenses/by-sa/4.0/.\
9. Privacy of the Authors Policies
a. The names and email addresses entered in this journal site will be used exclusively for the stated purposes of this journal and will not be made available to any other party or used for for any other purpose, other than dealing with the ISVS Seminars and the publication.
b. However, every author who publishes in the ISVS e-journal is entitled to become a member of the International Society for the Study of Vernacular Settlements (ISVS) and therefore, they will be invited to join the ISVS. Nevertheless, this is optional.
10. Review Policies
ISVS e-journal Publishes Research Papers Reviewed Only by the ISVS-Appointed Reviewers
a. This means that the papers are reviewed in a sequencial mannar to ensure that only those which have merits of sound research making significant contribution to knowledge and written in professional academic language shall be published. Each paper received is first vetted by the Editor-in-Chief to ascertain if the paper falls within the broader remit of the journal: Architecture and Culture. If the paper is outside the remit of the journal, the author is informed that it cannot be accepted for review.
b. The paper is then assigned an identification number and placed in a folder in a queue listed according to the dates received. Each paper is vetted for plagiarism and if found to have been plagiarized, the author is informed that the paper cannot be considered for publication.
c. ISVS e-journal applies a double-blind peer review system to review the papers. This means that each anonymized paper is sent to at least two reviewers or the members of the Editorial Board, (unknown and unrelated to the authors) by an assistant to the Editor-in-Chief or by the Editor-in-Chief himself. The focus of the paper is matched to the expertise of the reviewer as close as possible. If the reviewers listed in the website are not suitable or are unable to accomplish the task, alternative reviewers are appointed and papers are sent for review, after checking the credentials of the newly found reviewers.
d. Reviewers are offered sufficient time to review and are also provided with a structured review form, requesting specific evaluations and comments related to specific aspects as well as general observations. The review comments are requested to be both critical and instructive. The intention is to help the authors to improve the papers if there is merit in the research reported.
e. When two reviews are received, often, they are compiled into one Review Report to facilitate the authors to revise the papers properly and systematically. A single report is produced to make it easy for the authors to understand what needs to be done to develop the paper. These are sent to the corresponding author with instructions to revise. Occassionally however, the reviewers may choose to produce track-change comments on the papers themselves, and in such situations, the separate reviews with track change comments shall be sent to the authors. Yet, review identity is not divulged to the authors.
11. Revision Policies
a. The authors must attend to the revisions promptly and within the time allocated for the review. If there is any issue preventing the author in doing so, it must be immediately informed to the Editor-in-Chief and an extension of time should be agreed upon.
b. The authors must respond to the review report comments and follow the instructions to revise, paying attention to even the minute details. If the authors do not agree to any review comment, then the disagreement must be explained and justified. Authors must be polite in disagreeing with criticism, if so required.
c. If the review was in the form of a track-change enabled word file, all the comments must be removed and track-change must be disabled before doing the revisions. A clean revised paper without any comments must be submitted afterwards. Again, the ISVS e-journal only accepts Microsoft Word: either .doc or .docx versions for submission. PDF files or any other forms are not accepted.
d. During the revision, the authors must make sure that grammar, punctuation marks and definite and indefinite articles are appropriate for the construction of the narrative. A research paper must construct a logical and argumentative narrative. If in need of help in language and formatting (not revisions), an author is entitled to seek professional support services from the publisher ASK, who are familiar with the subject matter and will offer specific editorial and formatting services, instead of a general one if required. However, the journal may charge a fee for doing so.
12. Acceptance of the Revision Policies
a. ISVS e-journal accepts only well-written research papers.
This means that articles published in the ISVS e-journal are free from linguistic errors and formatting errors. If the first revision does not achieve these standards, the authors must be prepared to revise further, if asked until the paper reaches the linguistic, formatting and research standards expected by the journal. If it cannot achieve this, after three or four rounds of revisions, the paper shall be rejected.
b. Even after the acceptance by the Editor-in-Chief of the ISVS e-journal, the authors could be asked to improve the paper particularly, if the copy editors discover that the final list of references are not properly constituted. The authors must comply with the standards and particularly the journal-specific standards and instructions in the template.
13. Withdrawal Policies
Papers submitted to the ISVS e-journal can be withdrawn at any time. This means that the papers submitted to the ISVS e-journal can be withdrawn from the time of submission or even after publication if any author wishes to do so. However, certain conditions apply for withdrawing after publication.
a. A paper can be withdrawn without any issues, from the time of submission up until it is accepted by the Editor-in-Chief for publication. This can be during the review period, revision period, or secondary and tertiary revision periods. During this period, it does not need any justification for the withdrawal and has no implications.
b. However, once a paper is accepted, and the author has been informed, it is assumed that the author is in agreement to publish the paper. For some reason, if the paper needs to be withdrawn while it is being copy-edited and prepared for publication, a valid and justifiable reason acceptable to the ISVS e-journal must be given. The journal may impose a fee for withdrawal at this stage.
c. A published paper can be withdrawn from the journal after a few months, provided that the author offers a valid reason for the withdrawal. In this situation, the journal has to revise the contents, the page numbers and make many other adjustments, and therefore, the journal may impose a fee for such a withdrawal.
d. Withdrawal just before publication after it is accepted for publication can attract a fee for withdrawal because the author has by then, got the paper reviewed by the ISVS e-journal reviewers, done the revisions and has got the acceptance by the Editor-in-Chief. It is assumed that this is done in order to submit it to another journal for publication. This fee intends to discourage such practices which are detrimental to academic publications.
