The following are required for submission:

• Make sure the manuscript is suitable for this journal via reading the Aims & Scope;
• Make sure that issues about publication ethics have been considered;
• Make sure that all authors have approved of the submission.

2.1. Ensure that the following items are present:

One author has been designated as the corresponding author with contact details:

• E-mail address
• Full postal address

When submitting your manuscript, please make sure that the following items have been prepared as carefully as possible:

• Cover letter (mandatory);
• Manuscript prepared based on the Journal’s Template (mandatory);
• Author biography and graphical abstract (mandatory);
• Electronic supplementary materials (optional);
• Other necessary materials not for review (optional).

2.2. How to Submit

Our online submission system (https://mc03.manuscriptcentral.com/jic) guides you stepwise through the process of entering your article details and uploading your files. The system converts your article files to a single PDF file used in the peer-review process. Editable files (e.g., Word) are required to typeset your article for final publication. All correspondence, including notification of the Editor's decision and requests for revision, is sent by e-mail.

2.3. Reviewer Recommendation

Authors could suggest several potential reviewers by providing the names and institutional e-mail addresses. Authors should not suggest reviewers who are colleagues, or who have co-authored or collaborated with you during the last three years. Editors would not invite reviewers who have potential competing interests with the authors.

Note: the editor decides whether or not to invite the reviewers you suggested.

3.1. Language

Please write the text in good English. Possible grammatical or spelling errors should be carefully avoided, making the submissions conform to accepted standards of written technical English. The Journal’s editors are not responsible for correcting errors in grammar or spelling. Manuscripts that require extensive English revision may be rejected without review.

3.2. Length of manuscripts

There are no strict limits on the number of published pages for both research and review articles. Nevertheless, authors are asked to make the manuscript as concise as possible and to limit to less than 50 manuscript pages.

3.3. Article types

Journal of Intelligent Construction publishes five types of papers: Review, Research Article, Communication, Case Study, Perspectives/Highlights/Comment.

Research articles that inform readers of the latest research and advances in all domains of civil engineering, e.g., hydraulic engineering, structural engineering, geotechnical engineering, transportation, and construction management; review articles that report comprehensive research developments; rapid communications that feature exciting research breakthroughs in the field; and perspectives/highlights/comments that comment on topical issues or express views on developments in related fields.

3.4. Text formatting

For submission in Microsoft Word, use a normal, plain font (e.g., 9-point Charis SIL), one space line, and two columns for text. Use the automatic page numbering function to number the pages. Do not use field functions. Use tab stops or other commands for indents, not the space bar. Use the table function, not spreadsheets, to make tables. Use the equation editor or MathType for equations. Note: If you use Word 2007, do not create the equations with the default equation editor but use MathType instead.

Please follow this order to type the manuscript: cover letter, title page, abstract, keywords, main text (including tables and figures), appendix (if necessary), acknowledgements, declaration of competing interest, author contributions ( not required for front-matter articles), references, author biography, graphical abstract and electronic supplementary material (if necessary).

4.1. Cover letter

All submissions must include a cover letter that includes a convincing statement of the novelty and significance of the work and the relevance to the aims and scope of Journal of Intelligent Construction. This statement should not be a duplicate of the submission’s abstract. If the submission has been rejected previously by any journal, including Journal of Intelligent Construction, the cover letter should include the manuscript's previous submission history and response to referees' comments, as an appendix to the cover letter.

If any electronic supplementary materials (ESM) are submitted together with the manuscript, a list of the ESM should be given as an appendix to the cover letter. The authors should explain briefly why these ESM should be provided and why these ESM cannot be incorporated into the main body of the manuscript.

4.2. Title page

The title page should include:

A concise and informative title: Title should be succinct, objective, interesting and grammatically correct. Titles are often used in information-retrieval systems. Avoid abbreviations and formulae where possible.

Author names and affiliations: Please clearly indicate the given name(s) and family name(s) of each author and check that all names are accurately spelled. Present the authors' affiliation addresses (where the actual work was done) below the names. Provide the full postal address of each affiliation, including the country name and, if available, the e-mail address of each author.

Corresponding author: Clearly indicate who will handle correspondence at all stages of refereeing and publication, also post-publication. This responsibility includes answering any future queries about Methodology and Materials. Ensure that the e-mail address is given and that contact details are kept up to date by the corresponding author.

*Changes to the author list between initial submission and revision must be accompanied by an explanatory statement in the cover letter for the revision and a completed "Change in Authorship Request" form, which will be sent by the Journal Editorial Office. These changes will be accepted at the discretion of the Editor and may lead to rejection of the manuscript. Changes of authorship or the order of authors are not accepted after acceptance of a manuscript.

4.3. Abstract and keywords

A concise and factual abstract is needed for regular research articles and review articles to state the main purpose and research questions of the study, the methods, the main results, and the key conclusions. Abstract should be 120–250 words in length. No footnotes, references, figures, or tables may appear in the abstract.

Immediately after the abstract, please provide 4–6 keywords, which can be used for indexing purpose.

4.5. Main body

Manuscripts describing original research typically include the following sections: Introduction; Methods; Results and discussion; Conclusions. In submissions that have a significant theoretical or mathematical component, a section for the description of the analytical procedures may be required.

Heading/section levels (numbered). For regular research articles and review articles, please use the decimal system of headings. Please divide the article into clearly defined and consecutively numbered sections and subsections. Sections should be numbered 1, 2, etc. Subsections should be numbered 1.1 (then 1.1.1, 1.1.2, …), 1.2, etc. Use this numbering also for internal cross-referencing: do not just refer to “the text”. Each section and subsection should be given a brief heading and each heading should appear on its own separate line. Review article should begin with an Introduction section and end with a Conclusions or Summary section.

Abbreviations. Abbreviations should be defined at the point of first use and be used consistently thereafter. Abbreviations defined in the Abstract should be re-defined in the main text of the submission.

Footnotes. Essential footnotes to the text should be numbered consecutively and placed at the bottom of the page to which they refer. Footnotes to the table should be indicated by superscript lower-case letters (or asterisks) and placed immediately below the table.

Units. Please follow internationally accepted rules and conventions such as those defined by the International Organization for Standardization (ISO). If other units are mentioned, please give their equivalent in supplementary information.

Formulae and symbols. Formulae, symbols, and all subscripts, superscripts, Greek letters, and other characters must be legible and carefully checked. Standard mathematical notation should be used. All symbols used in manuscript must be explained. If necessary, a list of symbols may be provided and placed at the end of the Main body.

Equations. Numbering consecutively any equations that have to be displayed separately from the text (if referred to explicitly in the text), and referring the equation with Eq. (1), Eq. (2) … in the text. For the simple formulae which appear in the line of normal text, please use solidus (/) instead of a horizontal line for small fractional terms, e.g., x/y. Powers of e are often more conveniently denoted by “exp”. In principle, variables should be presented in italics.

Figures. All the figures, including data plots, photographs, diagrammatic sketches, flow charts, etc., should be embedded, approximately in their final sizes, in the main text near the paragraph in which they are first referenced, not on separate page(s) at the end. All figures should be numbered using Arab numerals (figure parts should be denoted by lowercase letters) and supplied with a figure caption. Please make sure that all elements found in the figure are identified in the caption. Figures should always be cited in text, such as Fig. 1, Fig. 2 … in consecutive numerical order. Color figures will remain in color in both the printed version and the online version of the journal, at no cost. The authors are encouraged to use color figures in the submitted manuscript.

Tables. All tables should be numbered using Arab numerals and supplied with a table title which explains clearly and concisely the components of the table. Tables should not duplicate results presented elsewhere in the manuscript (for example, in figures). Tables should always be cited in the text, such as Table 1, Table 2 … in consecutive numerical order.

Appendix. An appendix, if needed, is presented without numbers. If there are two or more appendices, they should be numbered consecutively. Equations in appendices should be designated differently from those in the main body of the manuscript, e.g., (A1), (A2), etc. In each appendix equations should be numbered separately.

Acknowledgements. The content of Acknowledgments is a list of people who contributed to the work in the manuscript but are not named in the author list, and a list of funding sources that supported the research presented. The names of funding organizations should be written in full. Do not include acknowledgements on the title page, as a footnote to the title or otherwise.

Declaration of competing interest. Authors are required to disclose financial or non-financial interests that are directly or indirectly related to the work submitted for publication. Authors should complete the declaration of competing interest statement in the submitted manuscript even if there are no interests to declare. If no conflict exists, the authors should state:

“The authors have no competing interests to declare that are relevant to the content of this article”.

Citations & references. References to the literature are cited by number in square brackets at appropriate locations (before a period, comma, etc.) in the text. Some examples are given below:

(1) There are several different methods, such as chemical precipitation [1], hydrothermal [2–4], sol–gel [2, 5, 6], and mechanochemical methods [7, 8].

(2) This phenomenon was originally observed by John and Williams [1] in 1980.

(3) This effect has been widely studied [1–3, 7].

Please note that a submission may be rejected directly without review if the reference list does not meet the following guidelines.

All literature citations should be compiled in a numbered reference list at the end of the manuscript text (but before the Appendices), in the order of their first citation in the text. Each numbered reference may contain only one literature citation. The list of references should only include works that are cited in the text and that have been published or accepted for publication. Papers just accepted for publication are cited by the DOI. Always use the standard abbreviation of a journal’s name according to the ISSN List of Title World Abbreviations (https://www.issn.org/services/online-services/access-to-the-ltwa/). Some examples:

(a) Journal article

[1] K. B. Zhou, X. Wang, X. M. Sun, et al. Enhanced catalytic activity of ceria nanorods from well defined reactive crystal planes. J Catal, 2005, 229: 206–212.

(b) Book (authored)

[2] F. P. Bowden, D. Tabor. Friction and Lubrication of Solids. Oxford (UK): Oxford University Press, 1950.

(c) Book chapter

[3] H. G. Craighead. Nanostructures in electronics. In: Nanomaterials: Synthesis, Properties and Applications. A. Edelstein, R. Cammatata, Eds. New York (USA): Taylor and Francis, 1998: pp 565–566.

(d) Paper in proceedings

[4] A. Mahdavi, B. Spasojevic. Incorporating simulation into building systems control logic. In: Proceedings of the 10th International Building Performance Simulation Association Conference and Exhibition, Beijing, China, 2007: pp 1175–1181.

(e) Thesis

[5] J. S. Chandrakanth. Effects of ozone on the colloidal stability of particles coated with natural organic matter. Ph.D. Thesis, Boulder, USA: University of Colorado, 1994.

(f) Patent

[6] S. K. Sheem. Low-cost fiber optic pressure sensor. U.S. Patent 6,738,537, 2004-05-18.

(g) Article by DOI

[7] M. K. Slifka, J. L. Whitton. Clinical implications of dysregulated cytokine production. J. Mol. Med., in press, https://doi.org/10.1007/s001090000086.

(h) Web style

[8] Information on http://www.brycoat.com/, 2008.

(i) Non-English publication

[9] W. Jia, Q. Zhang, Z. Bai, et al. Progress on manufacturing techniques of shaped charge liners. Rare Metal Mater Eng, 2007, 36: 1511–1516. (in Chinese)

(j) Standard

[10] ASTM D974-2014. Standard test method for acid and base number by color-indicator titration. ASTM, USA, 2014.

(k) Online reference

[11] Tour, J. M. Molecular Electronics: Commercial Insights, Chemistry, Devices, Architecture and Programming [Online]. World Scientific: River Edge, NJ, 2003; pp 177–180. http://legacy.netlibrary.com/ebook_info.asp?product_id=91422&piclist=19799,20141,20153 (accessed 2004-11-07).

(l) Reference to a dataset

[12] M. Oguro, S. Imahiro, S. Saito, et al. Mortality data for Japanese oak wilt disease and surrounding forest compositions. Mendeley Data, 2nd version: Elsevier, 2015. https://doi.org/10.17632/xwj98nb39r.1.

Do not use footnotes or endnotes as a substitute for a reference list.

Appendix. An appendix, if needed, is presented without numbers. If there are two or more appendices, they should be numbered consecutively. Equations in appendices should be designated differently from those in the main body of the manuscript, e.g., (A1), (A2), etc. In each appendix equations should be numbered separately.

Author biography. At least the first author’s and the corresponding author’s are required, including the colorful photo, one-paragraph introduction such as study and work experience, research interests, awards received, etc.

Graphical abstract. The authors are required to supply one picture (at least 600 dpi, 5 cm × 8 cm, the ratio of height to length should be less than 1 and larger than 5/8) as graphical abstract with 1–2-sentence summary of the paper.

If Electronic Supplementary Material (ESM) is submitted, it will be published as received from the authors without any conversion, editing, or reformatting. ESM are peer-reviewed materials directly relevant to the conclusions of a paper. Please note that the aims of ESM are only to provide additional, rather than necessary, supports for the conclusions of the paper. The authors are suggested to incorporate all the necessary information in the main text of the manuscript in order that the readers can understand the manuscript content easily and completely without the aid of the ESM. If supplying any ESM, the text must make specific mention of the material as a citation, similar to that of figures and tables (e.g., Fig. S1 in the ESM). Besides, a paragraph should be added before the “References” section (e.g., Electronic Supplementary Material: Supplementary material (add a brief description) is available in the online version of this article).

Information that cannot be printed, such as animations, video clips, sound recordings, etc., should be supplied always as electronic files with MP4 format.

Information that can be printed, such as text, figures, tables, etc., should be integrated into one electronic file with PDF format.

All the figures, including data plots, photographs, diagrammatic sketches, flow charts, etc., should be embedded, approximately in their final sizes, in the main text near the paragraph in which they are first referenced, not on separate page(s) at the end.

Electronic figure submission

• If a figure comprises several parts, it is better to integrate all the parts into a single
• When submit the figures in separate files, name figure files with "Fig" and the figure number, e.g., Fig1.jpg.

Please do not supply: (i) files that are optimized for screen use because these typically have a low number of pixels and limited set of colors; (ii) files that are too low in resolution; (iii) graphics that are disproportionately large for the content.

Line arts

• Definition: black and white graphic with no shading.
• Do not use faint lines and/or lettering and check that all lines and lettering within the figures are legible at final size.
• All lines should be at least 0.1 mm (0.3 pt) wide.
• Scanned line drawings and line drawings in bitmap format should have a minimum resolution of 1200 dpi.

Data plots

• Definition: graphical representation of data to reveal relationships between variables.
• Plots should follow guidelines for line art with font sizes and file resolution. All plots should use a white background.
• Simple geometric symbols (e.g., open and filled triangles, squares, circles, etc.,) should be used for data points, with capped error bars to denote the precision of measurements.
• Axes should labeled with the appropriate units included in parentheses.
• The use of Microsoft Excel to generate plots is strongly discouraged.

Halftone arts

• Halftone arts include micrographs, photographs, drawings, or paintings with fine shading, etc.
• If any magnification is used in the micrographs or photographs, indicate this by using scale bars within the figures themselves. Microscope-generated scale bars, particularly "tick-mark" style one, typically reproduce poorly and should be replaced by larger, more legible scale bars. Magnifications should not be given (e.g., 1000×).
• Screenshots of data from energy dispersive spectroscopy (EDS), mass spectrometry, nuclear magnetic resonance (NMR) spectroscopy, atomic force microscopy (ATM), etc., are not Data must be plotted in a graphing program.
• Halftones should have minimum resolution of 300 dpi.
• The aspect ratio of any images should not be altered.

Figure lettering

• Keep lettering consistently sized throughout your final-sized artwork, usually about 8–12 pt.
• Variance of type size within an illustration should be minimal.
• Avoid effects such as shading, outline letters, etc.
• Do not include titles or captions within your illustrations.

Figure numbering and captions

• All figures should be numbered using Arab numerals (figure parts should be denoted by lowercase letters).
• Figures should always be cited in text, such as Fig. 1, Fig. 2, in consecutive numerical order.
• Each figure should have a concise caption describing accurately what the figure depicts. Include the captions in the text file of the manuscript, not in the figure file.
• Please make sure that all elements found in the figure are identified in the caption.

Figure placement and size

• When preparing figures, please size figures to fit in the column width.

The figure should be not wider than 80 mm for single-column figures or 170 mm for double-column figures, and not taller than 230 mm. 

The Journal follows a single-blind reviewing procedure. The benefit of single-blind peer review is that it is the traditional model of peer review that many reviewers are comfortable with, and it facilitates a dispassionate critique of a manuscript. A regular review process for each submitted manuscript consists of three stages: initial check, preliminary assessment and peer review.

Initial check

The submitted manuscript will be initially checked by the handling editor. At this stage, a decision of “Reject without review” would be made for the submissions which do not meet the guidelines set out in this document. In addition, all manuscripts submitted to Journal of Intelligent Construction will be screened for plagiarism by Crossref Similarity Check. Those with high overlap scores (higher than 20%) may also be rejected directly without further review. We are sorry that we cannot provide the detailed report for the text overlap check.

Preliminary assessment

Manuscripts which pass through the initial check will be preliminarily assessed by the Editor-in-Chief and then the invited assistant editors. At this stage, the Editors-in-Chief have sole discretion, with the help of the invited assistant editors, on whether to send the manuscript for peer review or reject it without review.

Special emphases will be paid on the readability and the attractiveness of the submitted manuscripts. Manuscripts without an attractive abstract and/or a comprehensive and convincing introduction will be rejected at this stage without detailed comments.

Peer review

Around four reviewers will be invited for peer review. When a submission has at least two useable reports, the Editor-in-Chief will use the reviewers’ comments to decide whether to accept the manuscript for publication, return it for revision (major or minor), or reject it. All articles are evaluated by fit with the mission statement of the Journal, perceived quality and novelty of the work, potential interest to the Journal’s readership, and the standard of presentation (including the standard of technical written English and the quality of figures).

7.1. Open Access Licence Agreement

All articles in Journal of Intelligent Construction will be published on an Open-Access model. Upon acceptance of an article, authors will be asked to complete an 'Open Access Licence Agreement', which will ensure the widest possible protection and dissemination of information under copyright laws.

7.2. Article Processing Charge

Authors are required to pay Article Processing Charge (APC) if the manuscript was submitted after 31^st December 2026. Please note that Journal of Intelligent Construction is a subsidized open access journal where Tsinghua University Press (TUP) pays for the publishing costs incurred by the journal before 31^st December 2026.

7.3. Just Accepted

Accepted papers will be posted online prior to technical editing, formatting for publication, and author proofing as “Just Accepted” papers. This is intended to expedite publication and increase the impact of accepted papers. Just accepted papers will be accessible and citable with a Digital Object Identifier (DOI®).

7.4. Proof Reading

The purpose of the proof is to check for typesetting errors and the completeness and accuracy of the text, tables, and figures. Authors will have chance to double check symbols, formulas, and figure legends before final publication, for these may accidentally have been changed during typesetting. Substantial changes in content, e.g., new results, corrected values, title, and authorship, are not allowed without the approval of the Editors-in-Chief. After online publication, further changes can only be made in the form of an Erratum, which will be hyperlinked to the article.

7.5. Online First

The article will be published online after receipt of the corrected proofs. This is the official first publication citable with the DOI. After release of the printed version, the paper can also be cited by issue and page numbers.

Use of this template will save time in the review and production processes and will expedite publication. However, use of the template is not a requirement of submission.