The Faculty of Engineering

West Indian Journal of Engineering

Notes and Guidance for Authors

{The West Indian Journal of Engineering, WIJE (ISSN 0511-5728)}

Copyright

Articles submitted to The West Indian Journal of Engineering, WIJE (ISSN 0511-5728) should be original contributions and should not be under consideration for any other publication at the same time. Authors submitting articles for publication warrant that the work is not an infringement of any existing copyright and will indemnify the publisher against any breach of such warranty. For ease of dissemination and to ensure proper policing of use, papers and contributions become the legal copyright of the publisher unless otherwise agreed. Submissions should be sent to:

The Editor-in-Chief

Professor Kit Fai Pun, c/o WIJE, Faculty of Engineering, The University of the West Indies, St Augustine, Trinidad and Tobago, West Indies. Tel: 1-868-662-2002 exts-2069/3459; Fax: 1-868-662-4414; E-mails: KitFai.Pun@sta.uwi.edu; uwije@eng.uwi.tt

Editorial Aim and Policy

The WIJE is an international journal which has a focus on the Caribbean region.  Since its inception in 1961, it is published twice yearly by the Faculty of Engineering at The University of the West Indies and the Council of Caribbean Engineering Organisations in Trinidad and Tobago.

WIJE aims at contributing to the development of viable engineering skills, techniques, management practices and strategies relating to improving the performance of enterprises, community, and the quality of life of human beings at large.

Apart from its international focus and insights, WIJE also addresses itself specifically to the Caribbean dimension with regard to identifying and supporting the emerging research areas and promoting various engineering disciplines and their applications in the region.

It welcomes the submission of papers in various engineering disciplines and related areas. Emphasis is placed on the publication of articles which seek to link theory with application or critically analyse real situations with the objective of identifying good practice across different engineering and related disciplines.

Articles may be of a theoretical nature, be based on practical experience, report a case study situation or report experimental results. The prime requirement for acceptance of an article will not be its form but rather that it:

1. makes a significant original contribution to the field of engineering and the advancement of engineering practices;
2. is directly relevant to engineering, engineering management and technology, and related areas;
3. contains elements which have general application;
4. is within the scope of the journal coverage; and
5. has generally not been published previously except in very limited circulation.

The reviewing process

Each paper is to be reviewed by the Editor-in-Chief and, if it is judged suitable for this publication, it is then sent to two referees for double blind peer review. Based on their recommendations, the Editor then decides whether the paper should be accepted as is, revised or rejected.

Manuscript requirements

Full manuscript should be submitted in double line spacing with wide margins. The author(s) should be shown and their details must be printed on a separate sheet. The author(s) should not be identified anywhere else in the article. To facilitate the flow of manuscript reviewing processes, submissions via e-mail are advisable. 

As a guide, technical/research papers should be between 3,000 and 6,000 words in length. Shorter articles (Communications, Discussions, Book Reviews, etc.) should be between 500 and 2,000 words. Please provide the word count on the first page of your paper. A title of not more than eight words should be provided. A brief autobiographical note should be supplied including full name, affiliation, e-mail address and full international contact details.

Authors must supply a structured abstract. Maximum is 250 words in total. In addition provide up to six keywords which encapsulate the principal topics of the paper and categorise your paper. Headings must be short, clearly defined and not numbered. Notes or Endnotes should be used only if absolutely necessary and must be identified in the text by consecutive numbers, enclosed in square brackets and listed at the end of the article.

All Figures (charts, diagrams and line drawings) and Plates (photographic images) should be submitted in both electronic form and hard copy originals. Figures should be of clear quality, in black and white and numbered consecutively with Arabic numerals.

Figures created in MS Word, MS PowerPoint, MS Excel, Illustrator and Freehand should be saved in their native formats.

Electronic figures created in other applications should be copied from the origination software and pasted into a blank MS Word document or saved and imported into an MS Word document by choosing "Insert" from the menu bar, "Picture" from the drop-down menu and selecting "From File..." to select the graphic to be imported.

For figures which cannot be supplied in MS Word, acceptable standard image formats are: pdf, ai, wmf and eps. If you are unable to supply graphics in these formats then please ensure they are tif, jpeg, or bmp at a resolution of at least 300dpi and at least 10cm wide.

To prepare screen shots, simultaneously press the "Alt" and "Print screen" keys on the keyboard, open a blank Microsoft Word document and simultaneously press "Ctrl" and "V" to paste the image. (Capture all the contents/windows on the computer screen to paste into MS Word, by simultaneously pressing "Ctrl" and "Print screen".)

For photographic images (plates) good quality original photographs should be submitted. If supplied electronically they should be saved as tif or jpeg files at a resolution of at least 300dpi and at least 10cm wide. Digital camera settings should be set at the highest resolution/quality possible.

In the text of the paper the preferred position of all tables, figures and plates should be indicated by typing on a separate line the words "Take in Figure (No.)" or "Take in Plate (No.)". Tables should be typed and included as part of the manuscript. They should not be submitted as graphic elements. Supply succinct and clear captions for all tables, figures and plates. Ensure that tables and figures are complete with necessary superscripts shown, both next to the relevant items and with the corresponding explanations or levels of significance shown as footnotes in the tables and figures.

References to other publications must be in Harvard style and carefully checked for completeness, accuracy and consistency. This is very important in an electronic environment because it enables your readers to exploit the Reference Linking facility on the database and link back to the works you have cited through CrossRef. You should include all author names and initials and give any journal title in full.

You should cite publications in the text: (Adams, 2008) using the first named author's name or (Adams and Brown, 2008) citing both names of two, or (Adams et al., 2008), when there are three or more authors. At the end of the paper, a reference list in alphabetical order should be supplied:

• For books: Surname, initials, (year), title of book, publisher, place of publication, e.g., Walesh, S. G. (2012), Engineering Your Future: The Professional Practice of Engineering, 3rd Edition, ASCE Press/John Wiley & Sons, New Jersey, NJ.
  
  
• For book chapters: Surname, initials, (year), "chapter title", editor's surname, initials, title of book, publisher, place of publication, pages, e.g., Liebowitz, J. (2005), "Conceptualising and implementing knowledge management", in Love, P. E. D., Fong, P. S. W. and Irani, Z., (ed.), Management of Knowledge in Project Environments, Elsevier, New York, NY, pp. 1-18
  
  
• For journals: Surname, initials, (year), "title of article", journal name, volume, number, pages, e.g. Tsang, A. H. C. (2012), “A review on trend tests for failure data analysis", West Indian Journal of Engineering, Vol. 35, No.1, July, pp.4-9.
  
  
• For electronic sources: Surname, initials, or institution, (year), name of website, website address, date updated (if any) or date visited, e.g., EFQM (2012), European Foundation for Quality Management, available at: http://www.EFQM.org/ (Dated: 1 January 2012)

Final submission of the article

Once accepted for publication, the Editor may request the final version as an attached file to an e-mail or to be supplied on a diskette or a CD-ROM labelled with author name(s); title of article; journal title; file name.

The manuscript will be considered to be the definitive version of the article. The author must ensure that it is complete, grammatically correct and without spelling or typographical errors.

The preferred file format is Word. Another acceptable format for technical/mathematics content is Rich text format.

Author Agreement Form