1. Open Access Licensing Policy
Geotechnical Engineering Technique is an open access journal. All articles are immediately and permanently available for free reading and downloading on the official journal website upon publication, under the Creative Commons Attribution‑NonCommercial‑NoDerivatives 4.0 International License (CC BY‑NC‑ND 4.0).
The license is granted to third‑party users by the journal (as the copyright holder). The terms are as follows:
(1) Attribution: Third‑party users must provide appropriate credit to the authors and Geotechnical Engineering Technique, include a link to the license, and indicate if changes were made. The attribution may be given in any reasonable manner, but not in any way that suggests the journal endorses the user or their use.
(2) NonCommercial: No one may use the material for commercial purposes.
(3) NoDerivatives: If others remix, transform, or build upon the material, they may not distribute the modified material.
The full license terms are available at:https://creativecommons.org/licenses/by-nc-nd/4.0/
2. Copyright Policy
When submitting a manuscript to Geotechnical Engineering Technique, authors are required to sign a Copyright Transfer Agreement (CTA) with the editorial office. Upon acceptance, authors agree to transfer the following copyright rights to the editorial office of Geotechnical Engineering Technique worldwide:
(1) Transferred rights: The editorial office shall own the rights of compilation, publication, reproduction (in print and electronic forms), translation, information network dissemination, and the right to license inclusion in bibliographic retrieval systems and databases. Authors retain the right to use their own work in accordance with the CC BY‑NC‑ND 4.0 license.
(2) Scope of rights: Including, but not limited to, exercising the above rights in any existing or future forms, formats, and media (e.g., CD‑ROM, disk, internet, databases, etc.).
(3) Rights retained by authors: Authors may use and share their article (including non‑commercial reproduction, distribution, display, etc.) under CC BY‑NC‑ND 4.0 without further permission from the editorial office. Authors may also archive the article in personal homepages and institutional repositories, provided that the original publication in Geotechnical Engineering Technique is clearly cited.
(4) Termination: If the manuscript is not accepted, the Copyright Transfer Agreement shall terminate automatically, and all copyright shall remain with the authors.
The template of the Copyright Transfer Agreement is available in the Download Center section of this website.
3. Author Rights and Publication Fees
Author rights: After acceptance, the Copyright Transfer Agreement ensures that both third parties and authors may use and share the article in compliance with CC BY‑NC‑ND 4.0.
Publication fees: To support the open access model (providing free full‑text access to readers), Geotechnical Engineering Technique charges an Article Processing Charge (APC). The APC ranges from 3,000 to 5,000 RMB based on the article length. Article publication fees will be paid to authors in a lump sum after publication. No additional copyright‑related royalties will be paid to authors thereafter.
4. Peer Review Policy
The journal follows a triple‑review and triple‑proofreading policy with single‑blind peer review.
(1) Initial Review: Manuscripts are first evaluated by the editorial office. Those outside the journal’s scope or with obvious defects will be rejected at this stage.
(2) Peer Review: Manuscripts are sent to editorial board members and/or other experts in the relevant field for review. Reviewers must provide objective and impartial comments, have no conflicts of interest with the authors or funding bodies, and maintain confidentiality of the manuscript and related information.
(3) Editorial Re‑evaluation: The editorial office reviews the peer review comments and provides authors with a comprehensive assessment based on expert opinions and the journal’s academic standards.
(4) Editor‑in‑Chief Final Decision: The Editor‑in‑Chief conducts the final review and makes the final decision on publication.
