Open Access Statement
Journal of South China University of Technology (Natural Science Edition), founded in 1957, mainly reports the innovative research results obtained in basic research, applied research and development research in the fields of civil engineering, architecture, mechanical engineering, electric power, chemical engineering, light industry, radio, automation, computer, transportation, materials, food, environmental engineering, bioengineering, physics and chemistry. In order to comply with the international Open Access movement, effectively promote the application and dissemination of scientific and technological papers and promote scientific and technological journals to meet international standards, the journal has declared to be an open access (OA) journal since 2003, committed to the sharing and dissemination of scientific and technological knowledge. The journal follows CC BY-NC protocol（https://creativecommons.org/licenses/by-nc/4.0/）, which means that any non-commercial user is allowed to read, download, copy, distribute, print, search, hyperlink the literature in the journal for free; indexing it for input to software or any other legitimate purposes is also permitted. The original author’s name should be indicated when citing the literature of the journal in order to respect the original author’s work, and the publication date and source URL of the journal should be indicated, along with whether the original work has been modified or not. Without the consent of the original author and our journal, published papers (works) or derivative works of the journal shall not be used for commercial purposes. Except for the requirement of Internet access, there is no financial or technological limits when using the literature. The open access policy of our journal conforms to DOAJ’s definition.
At present, Journal of South China University of Technology (Natural Science Edition) has joined CAJ-CD, cqvip.com, wanfangdata.com and CNKI, and is open to the public for non-commercial use of all scientific and technological papers in the journal. All articles in this journal will be openly accessible through the journal’s official website (https://zrb.bjb.scut.edu.cn) as soon as they are published, and the full text will be made available to readers free of charge. Our journal does not separately charge open access article processing fees.
Article-processing Charges
Journal of South China University of Technology (Natural Science Edition) charges a certain page fee for accepted articles as appropriate, and remunerates all contributors. According to the Individual Income Tax Law of the People’s Republic of China and Law on Administration of Taxation of the People’s Republic of China and other relevant laws and regulations, when the editorial department of the Journal of South China University of Technology (Natural Science Edition) pays the author’s remuneration or the reviewer’s fee, it is required to withhold and pay individual income tax on behalf of the trustee; when collecting the processing charges, it is required to issue a VAT invoice to the competent tax authority and pay taxes according to the law. The trustee needs to provide personal identification and relevant information to Journal of South China University of Technology (Natural Science Edition) (filled in the editorial system on the journal website).
Review Process
The editorial department of Journal of South China University of Technology (Natural Science Edition) strictly controls academic problems, with no emotional factors involved, adopts "triditing system" and "double-blind review " and ensures the quality of published papers. The quality of published articles will be fully guaranteed through multiple review stages, such as the preliminary review by editors, blind review by experts and final review by editor-in-chief. The editorial system of our journal adopts the collaborative editorial system designed and developed by Beijing Magtech S&T Co., Ltd（ https://zrb.bjb.scut.edu.cn ）; WeChat official account, a mobile editorial system, can meet the needs of expert reviewers and authors.
Preliminary review by editors: judging whether the content of the manuscript meets the requirements of the journal, checking whether the article structure is complete, and using the “Academic Misconduct Literature Checking system (AMLC)” by China National Knowledge Infrastructure (CNKI) for misconduct detection (https://check.cnki.net). If the similarity rate is less than 18%, the manuscript will be considered as qualified and enter the preliminary review by editors. When the similarity rate exceeds 18%, the editor will compare the repeated content and decide whether to accept the manuscript or not. Then, combined with the content, the articles with weak quality and insufficient innovation are eliminated, and appropriate experts are assigned to review the manuscripts that pass the preliminary review. The period of preliminary review is 1-5 days.
Blind review by external experts: the double-blind peer review is strictly implemented. The manuscript is reviewed by two external reviewers in the field, and the review process is double-blind. If both external reviewers believe that the paper is of poor quality, it is not recommended to publish, and the article will be rejected. If the two external reviewers agree that the paper is of good quality, the article will be included in the final review. If one external reviewer believes that the article is of good quality and recommends publication, while the other expert believes that the quality of the paper does not meet the publication requirements, it shall be submitted to the editor-in-chief for review to see whether it needs to be revised by the author and then re-reviewed or sent to a third expert for review, and the decision to accept, reject or revise the expert opinion will be based on the re-review or the opinion of the third expert. The external review cycle is 2-3 weeks.
Manuscripts returned for revision: manuscripts that have passed the external review need to be revised by the author by combining the external review opinions of experts and the review opinions of editors, and fill in the manuscript revision instructions (see the download center of the journal website for details) to reply to the external review comments of experts one by one, and the returned manuscript should be submitted to the editor-in-chief for final review.
Final review by editor-in-chief: after the external review, the manuscript revised by the author shall be comprehensively reviewed by the editor-in-chief. Combining the contents of the manuscript with the comments from editors, external experts and the re-review, specific final review comments shall be given, and the final verdict on the revision or acceptance of the manuscript shall be given. The editor-in-chief’s final review cycle is 1-2 weeks.
Copyright Notice
For the individual(s) including the author(s) or entity(ies) granted rights under the “Creative Commons Attribution-NonCommercial 4.0 International Public License” (https://creativecommons.org/licenses/by-nc/4.0/legalcode), Journal of South China University of Technology (Natural Science Edition) hereby grants you a worldwide, royalty-free, non-sublicensable, non-exclusive, irrevocable license to exercise the Licensed Rights in the Licensed Material subject to the terms and conditions of this Public License. Any non-commercial user can freely share (copy and redistribute the material in any medium or format) and adapt (modify, transform, and build upon the material) the articles in the journal. NonCommercial means not primarily intended for or directed towards commercial advantage or monetary compensation. For purposes of this Public License, the exchange of the Licensed Material for other material subject to Copyright and Similar Rights by digital file-sharing or similar means is NonCommercial provided there is no payment of monetary compensation in connection with the exchange.
The copyright of the article is exclusive to the authors, and the authors have rights under the “Creative Commons Attribution-NonCommercial 4.0 International Public License”. Journal of South China University of Technology (Natural Science Edition) has paid for the published articles, including prepaid usage fees. This journal has agreed with the authors that the authors have to transfer their commercial rights to the journal, which means this journal has the right to cooperate with relevant databases and electronic publication publishers, as well as to use the electronic version of the articles on its WeChat official account and website in part or in whole without paying the royalties to the authors. The authors are deemed to have understood and agreed to the above statement and agreement when they contribute to this journal.