Removal of Papers or Preprints

As JCSE is a Journal of Record, fully published papers must remain available indefinitely, and it is not permitted to remove them (note, however, that it is possible to substitute a revised version). Preprints may be removed with the agreement of all authors, but authors should be aware that there may be some unexpected results from such removal. While we can stop the publication of preprints from the JCSE web site, there will typically be references to the preprint, and possibly full copies, stored on other systems. Thus the Internet Archive WayBackMachine holds snapshots of prior versions of the Journal. Similarly, some plagiarism checkers may have scanned preprints, and they may report attempts to resubmit papers to other journals as being plagiarised. In the past we have found it impossible for us to remove such references, since we were not the originators of the submission.
While we specifically ask readers not to reference preprints, this does happen. If the reference links to the listing of papers on the relevant volume, the preprint will not appear. If the reference provides a direct link to the preprint this will result in a page stating that the preprint "... has been removed at the request of the authors ...".

I have changed my email address - what should I do?

If you are able to login to the journal, you can change your email address by clicking 'Change Email' under 'Your JCSE' (at the top right of the page). If you have forgotten your password, so will not be able to login (since the password reminder will be sent to you old email address), please contact JCSE Administration, giving both the old and the new email address. Please avoid re-registering as this clutters our database with non-functioning accounts, which cause problems with email deliverability.

The 'forgotten password' link says I am not registered, but if I try to re-register it tells me that the email address is already registered.

This suggests that your account has been marked for deletion as part of our efforts to remove defunct and suspect email addresses. Unless your account looks very suspect you should have received an email asking you to confirm your email address, and your account will be restored when you click this. If you did not receive the email (check your spam/junk mail folder) please contact JCSE Administration; give your email address and ask for the account to be restored.

What does it cost to publish in JCSE? ... What does it cost to buy JCSE?

JCSE is free to both authors and readers. We get a very small income from the Google-provided advertisements (it is so small that we have not yet considered it worth asking Google to pay it), but in essence this is a 'spare-time' activity of the Editor. Unfortunately, this does mean that things don't always get done as quickly as we would like!

I can't register - what should I do?

The registration process is fully-automated, and should be relatively straightforward. When you complete and submit a registration form, an email will be sent to you, and this email includes a link that you must click in order to verify that we have got a working email address. Sometimes this link is split across two lines by email reading programs, and in this case it may not work correctly because only the first line is passed to the browser. To solve this problem, you should copy and paste the second part of the link into the browser address box, ensuring that there are no spaces between the first and second parts of the address, then press Go to submit the confirmation. If you still can't get this to work, please forward the email asking you to confirm your registration to :regProblemLink.

If you don't get the confirmation email then this suggests either that the email address that you entered is incorrect, or that the confirmation email has been deleted by a spam blocking program, or maybe there is a problem with your email, such as a full inbox. If you have access to blocked spam, then check this for messages from journal administration (address admin@jcse.org). To avoid problems with spam blockers, add admin@jcse.org to your address book. If the confirmation email fails to arrive, you can resend it on the registration page, but first add Admin@jcse.org to your contacts so that messages hopefully do not get stopped by the spam blocker. The resend page will also tell you if the address that you have entered has not been registered, which suggests that you entered it incorrectly when registering (or if it is a long time since you first registered, we may have deleted the address during a clear-out of unconfirmed registration requests). In this case,just resubmit your registration.

I haven't received an email that should have been sent

If you don't receive an email when we say that you should do, this suggests that the email address that we are sending to is not working, that messages from JCSE are being blocked as spam, or the journal email sending system is not working. In this situation, go through the following steps:

• Check your spam or junk mail folder for messages from :JCSE, and, if possible specify that Admin@jcse.org is a trusted sender.
• Check that you entered the address correctly (you can usually use Back on the browser to go back to the page on which you entered the address). Then try sending a message to yourself on the same address.
• If you were trying to register, see the note above for more detailed advice, or try using a different email address if you have one.
• If you were trying to get a password reminder, the failure implies that your email address is no longer working. If you are an author of a paper in JCSE, then please contact Admin.jcse.org and explain your problem, since it is important that we should be able to contact you if there are any comments on your paper(s). If you are not an author, then the simplest thing to do is to create a new account from an alternative email address.
• Finally, if you are convinced that the email has never been sent, then contact Admin.jcse.org, making sure to explain what you have bee trying to do, and why you were expecting a message.

Why am I getting the message "validation codes damaged" when I try to confirm my registration?

The usual reason for getting this message is that your mail reader has forced the link to the confirmation page onto two lines, and when you click on the link the second line is not included. You can get around this by manually copying and pasting the second part of the link into the browser address bar.

Is my paper suitable for publication?

Potential authors often send abstracts of their proposed paper and ask if we would be able to publish it in JCSE. Providing there is at least some link with corrosion, the answer is always yes, but authors need to understand that this is qualified by the way JCSE works, which is not like a conventional paper-based journal. All reputable scientific journals undertake to test the papers that they publish against standards of 'scientific correctness'. Conventional Journals do this at the submission stage. At JCSE we publish the submitted paper without any review as a preprint. This is subsequently subject to conventional peer review, following which it is published as a full paper.

It is important for authors to realise that their paper will be exposed to the general public in exactly the form that it is submitted. It is, therefore, in authors' interests to ensure themselves that their paper is suitable for publication.

Why are so many papers still in preprint form?

JCSE is produced without any financial support, except for a small income from the adverts that appear on many pages (this is currently so small that it has not been worth withdrawing it from our account). Consequently, the management of the paper editing and review process is a 'spare-time' activity, and sadly we have very little spare time, so this has got very much behind our intended timescale.

With this new implementation of the Journal software that will automate many of these processes, and make it possible for us to appoint associate editors who will be able to assist with the management of the paper review process (this has not previously been feasible because of the need for some of the management to operate by way of direct access to the database, which would be far to error-prone). It is hoped that this system will come online shortly. There will still be a large backlog of papers to complete, but we shall then be able to concentrate on doing this.

Why haven't I heard from you?

If you are waiting for a response from us, then there are several possible explanations:

1. We have mislaid your message - this is not impossible, although it does not happen very often. It is less likely to happen if you include the acronym 'JCSE' in your message, since this makes it easy for us to locate messages relating to JCSE.
2. The paper has been discarded by our spam filtering system. Unfortunately this is now a significant possibility thanks to the sheer volume of spam that we receive. It is very likely to happen if you send us messages without a subject, or if you use 'spam-like' subjects such as "Why haven't you contacted me".
3. Your message has got lost in transmission. This is relatively rare, although it is more likely for large messages, such as messages with attached documents. While you should get a message to say that the delivery has failed, this does not always happen.
4. We have replied, but the message has failed to be delivered. We find that it is quite common for authors' email addresses to fail, especially for 'open access' addresses such as Hotmail, Yahoo and the like (presumably because these addresses are sometimes revoked if not used regularly). We aim to set up a page with a list of 'missing authors' so that you can check whether has happened to you.
5. If you write asking why your paper has not yet been published, then we tend to feel that it is better to spend our limited time trying to get papers published, rather than explaining why papers have not yet been published. Hopefully the new software system will reduce the need for such questions in the future.

Can I post a copy of my paper/preprint on my web site?

We permit this, but we would very much prefer if you put up a link to the paper (go to the paper and copy the address in the address bar of the browser) rather than a copy of the paper for a number of reasons:

1. It allows readers to view and add comments on the paper.
2. It will automatically change to the fully published paper as soon as the review process is completed.
3. It allows us to add readers to our database, and thereby helps promote the journal.
4. It allows us to present an advert that goes a small way to providing financial support for the Journal.

Can I become a reviewer for JCSE?

It is open to any reader to opt to join the panel of reviewers for JCSE. if you login to the Journal and look at YourJCSE | Preferences you just need to select the Will Review box. This will automatically add you to the list of potential reviewers. You should also select relevant keywords (also via YourJCSE) so that we can match your interests to papers needing review. Note, however, that we reserve the right to remove users from the review panel if they do not appear to have appropriate qualifications or experience.

What are all these funny characters?

In the early years of publication we did not fully appreciate the effects of different character font settings. For 'normal' english text this has very little effect, but problems arise when accented characters, greek letters and other symbols are used. The problem should not normally occur in PDF documents, and for other text we now use the UTF-8 character set exclusively, which should prevent most problems. Please contact Journal Administration if you find text in a paper that you are not able to interpret, and we'll try to correct it.

Can I withdraw my paper?

JCSE is a 'journal of record', which means that we are committed to make it available indefinitely. Consequently it is not permitted to withdraw papers that have been fully published (i.e. that are described as 'paper' rather then 'preprint'). Preprints may be withdrawn, but authors should be aware that some systems over which we have no control may retain copies of the paper. In particular we have experienced problems with plagiarism detection systems, that may retain information derived from a paper and only allow such information to be removed by whoever first submitted it. This has lead to papers being reported as plagiarised if they are submitted to other journals after being withdrawn from from JCSE.

Revised 8 December 2022