Submissions

Author Guidelines

CED is an international, peer-reviewed, open-access journal. Please consult the separate Focus & Scope page before submitting. All manuscripts must demonstrate originality, methodological rigor and relevance to civil engineering.

Article Types

CED primarily publishes original research articles, including case studies and practical applications with original findings and meaningful scientific or engineering contributions. Critical and comprehensive review articles are considered by Editorial Board invitation only; unsolicited reviews are not accepted. Invited reviews undergo normal editorial assessment and peer review, and invitation does not guarantee acceptance.

Submission and Cover Letter

Register and submit at https://ced.petra.ac.id/ using Open Journal Systems (OJS). All initial manuscripts, cover letters, revisions, reviewer responses and correspondence must be handled through OJS; email submissions are not processed. Authors may monitor progress in OJS. Name each file CED-<FirstName>-<FirstWordTitle> (e.g., CED-Hadi-Comparison). ORCID iDs are encouraged.

Upload a separate cover letter that (1) explains the manuscript’s contribution and fit with CED; (2) confirms it has not been published or submitted elsewhere; (3) confirms whether generative AI was used in writing, identifying the tool and purpose if applicable; and (4) suggests at least three qualified reviewers, with full names, affiliations, institutional emails and areas of expertise. Suggested reviewers must be free of conflicts, including recent collaboration or shared institutional affiliation. The Editor may select other reviewers.

Manuscript Preparation

Use the CED manuscript template. Format: A4 paper; top/bottom margins 2 cm, left/right margins 1.5 cm; single-spaced, 11-point text in one column; consecutively numbered pages; maximum 20 pages including references, figures, tables and appendices. Manuscripts must be written in clear, professional academic English; language editing may be used when needed.

Organize the manuscript as: Title; Authors and Affiliations; Abstract and Keywords; Introduction; Methods; Results and Discussion; Conclusions; Acknowledgments (if applicable); Author Contributions (CRediT); Disclosure Statement; Data Availability Statement; Funding Statement; Declaration of Generative AI and AI-Assisted Technologies (if applicable); References; Appendices (if applicable). Invited review articles may follow a structure approved by the Editorial Board.

Provide full names, institutional affiliations (including city and country) and institutional emails for all authors; clearly identify the corresponding author. Only the corresponding author’s email is published. Before submitting, check that the article title, author names and order, affiliations, abstract, and keywords entered in OJS are the same as those in the manuscript.

The approximately 150-word abstract should briefly cover background, research gap, objective, methods, key results and conclusions. Avoid references where possible; define necessary abbreviations. Include 3–10 keywords.

Relevant SDGs (optional): Authors are encouraged to list up to three United Nations Sustainable Development Goals (SDGs) most relevant to their research, immediately after the Keywords, using SDG numbers only (e.g., SDG 9; SDG 11; SDG 12). No explanation is required.

Research must establish novelty and broader scientific, technical or practical relevance, including for local case studies. Describe materials, methods, experimental conditions, numerical models and limitations sufficiently for evaluation and, where appropriate, reproducibility. Provide appropriate verification/validation for computational work. Use SI units; if other units are needed, give SI equivalents and define symbols and abbreviations.

Figures, Tables and Graphical Abstract

Number figures and tables separately in consecutive Arabic numerals, cite them in the text and provide clear, self-explanatory captions. Place figures and tables in the manuscript. Figures (including photographs, charts and diagrams) must be high-quality, consistent in lettering and symbols, and legible after reduction; crop unnecessary detail. Prefer clear, manageable tables to overly complex ones.

Graphical Abstract (Required After Acceptance)

A graphical abstract is not required at initial manuscript submission. Once a paper is accepted, authors must upload one original graphical abstract as a separate image file before publication, including for accepted invited review articles. It should visually summarize the study’s main purpose, approach, and principal findings or insights without introducing unsupported claims. A graphical abstract supplements, but does not replace, the written abstract. Use concise labels, legible lettering, and a clean layout. Recommended format: landscape 16:9, at least 1600 × 900 pixels, PNG or high-quality JPEG.

All visual elements must be original or used with permission. AI-generated or AI-altered graphical abstracts are prohibited unless the image is explicitly part of the research methodology and fully disclosed in the Methods section, consistent with the CED Generative AI Policy.

References

Cite references in the order they first appear in the text, using numbers in square brackets (e.g., [1], [2]). List all references in the same numerical order at the end of the manuscript. Every in-text citation must match a reference-list entry, and vice versa. Manuscripts must include more than 15 references, with at least 80% primary sources and at least 80% published within the last 10 years. The Editorial Board may consider justified exceptions for invited review articles.

Verify all bibliographic details. Include a clickable DOI link (https://doi.org/...) wherever available, or a stable online link when possible; incorrect or missing required links may result in return before review. Use Roman script; transliterate non-Roman references and translate their titles into English. Unpublished results and personal communications may be cited in text but not listed; “in press” applies only to accepted work. Reference management software (Zotero, Mendeley or EndNote) is recommended. For formatting examples covering journal articles, books, book chapters and standards, consult the References section of the CED Manuscript Template on the journal website.

Required Statements

Author Contributions (CRediT)

All authors must identify their contributions using the 14 CRediT roles: Conceptualization; Data Curation; Formal Analysis; Funding Acquisition; Investigation; Methodology; Project Administration; Resources; Software; Supervision; Validation; Visualization; Writing – Original Draft; and Writing – Review & Editing. Authors may hold multiple roles and roles may be shared.

Funding Statement

Identify all research/manuscript funding and grant numbers, or state: “This research received no specific grant from any funding agency in the public, commercial, or not-for-profit sectors.”

Disclosure Statement

Declare all potential financial and personal competing interests, including employment, consultancy, ownership, honoraria, testimony, patents, grants and CED editorial roles; if none, state: “The authors declare that they have no known competing financial interests or personal relationships that could have appeared to influence the work reported in this paper.” Authors with competing interests must describe them. CED editors/board members must disclose their roles; another editor handles their submissions independently. Include: “[Name] is a [role] of Civil Engineering Dimension and was not involved in the editorial handling or peer review of this article.”

Data Availability Statement

Required for every manuscript, including when no new data were generated. State whether supporting data are in a public repository (with link/identifier), included in the article, available on reasonable request, restricted (with reason), or not applicable.

Generative AI Declaration (when applicable)

When generative AI or AI-assisted tools were used in manuscript writing, add a statement before References naming the tool and specific purpose, confirming human review and full author responsibility. Suggested wording: “The author(s) used [TOOL/SERVICE NAME] for [SPECIFIC PURPOSE] during manuscript preparation. The author(s) reviewed and edited the content as necessary and accept full responsibility for the published work.” Basic grammar, spelling and reference-checking tools are exempt. If no AI was used, no manuscript declaration is needed, but the cover letter must confirm this.

Peer Review, Revisions and Appeals

CED uses single-blind peer review: reviewers know authors’ identities, but authors do not know reviewers’ identities. Editors may reject manuscripts without external review for scope, novelty or scholarly-quality reasons. Decisions may include acceptance, rejection or revision. Minor revisions are due within one week; major revisions within two weeks. Request extensions from the editorial office in advance.

Upload through OJS: (1) a point-by-point response letter addressing every comment and explaining any disagreement; (2) a revised manuscript with changes highlighted; and (3) a clean revised manuscript. Authors may appeal one editorial decision per manuscript through OJS with specific reasons; the appeal outcome is final.

Publication Ethics and Generative AI

CED follows COPE Core Practices (https://publicationethics.org/core-practices). Authors must report research accurately, maintain and provide data when requested, submit original work only, avoid plagiarism, duplicate/concurrent submissions, fabricated citations, excessive self-citation and citation manipulation, and acknowledge sources properly. Authorship is restricted to substantial contributors; all co-authors must approve the final submission.

Author order and membership should be finalized before submission. Changes before acceptance require a reason and written agreement of all affected authors, including those added or removed; changes after acceptance are not permitted. Disclose hazards and applicable ethical approvals; for human-participant research, including surveys and interviews, report informed consent and required committee approval. Disclose all conflicts of interest.

CED follows the COPE Retraction Guidelines (https://publicationethics.org/guidance/guideline/retraction-guidelines). Corrections address errors that do not invalidate conclusions; expressions of concern address unresolved serious questions; retractions address unreliable findings or serious misconduct. The Editor-in-Chief and Editorial Board oversee investigations and decisions, normally allowing authors to respond; notices remain linked to the original articles, and retracted articles remain identified and accessible. Authors must promptly report significant errors.

Generative AI may be used to improve writing readability and language quality only, with human oversight; AI used as a research method must be described in Methods. Authors retain responsibility for accuracy, originality and integrity, and AI cannot be an author. AI-generated or AI-altered images are prohibited except where explicitly part of the research methodology and disclosed. To protect confidentiality, generative AI tools are prohibited in manuscript peer review and evaluation. CED may update this policy as technology evolves.

Open Access, Copyright and Publication

CED charges no submission fee or article processing charge (APC). Articles are freely available online under Creative Commons Attribution 4.0 (CC BY 4.0; https://creativecommons.org/licenses/by/4.0/). Authors retain copyright and publishing rights and grant CED first-publication rights. Properly attributed reuse and non-exclusive redistribution (including institutional repositories or books) are permitted with acknowledgment of first publication in CED; authors are encouraged to share their published work online.

Copyright notice: “© [Year] by the authors; licensee Civil Engineering Dimension, Surabaya, Indonesia. This article is an open access article distributed under the terms of the Creative Commons Attribution License (http://creativecommons.org/licenses/by/4.0/).” Authors must obtain permissions for third-party copyrighted material.

After acceptance, articles undergo copy-editing, English editing, author proofreading, corrections, pagination and online publication at https://ced.petra.ac.id/. CED (p-ISSN 1410-9530; e-ISSN 1979-570X) publishes regular issues in March and September and may publish special issues.

Privacy and Contact

Names and email addresses supplied to CED are used only for journal purposes and are not shared for unrelated purposes. CED is committed to protecting user confidentiality and personal information.

Editorial inquiries and OJS assistance:

The Editor,

Civil Engineering Dimension,

Institute of Research and Community Outreach,

Petra Christian University, Surabaya, Indonesia.

Email: [email protected]