DFI Magazine September/October 2020 - 63

New Faces, Content Access and Tools with DFI Journal Facelift

By the end of this year, close to 150 papers
will have been published in the DFI Journal
since the current format began in 2007.
Recognizing that each issue's impact stands
and falls on its visibility, quality, reach and
value to authors and readers, the Journal
leadership started a complete revamp this
spring of its infrastructure, web presence
and publication team, with the goal to better
serve the deep foundation community.
The publication features state-of-the-art
research on deep foundations, as well as
case studies featuring exemplary, technically innovative geotechnical projects
from across the globe. We publish two to
three issues annually as a specialty journal,
and receive manuscripts from authors of
diverse geographical, professional and
cultural backgrounds. Our paper competitions have drawn international participants, and our special issues offer global
insights to provide innovation advances
and technical progress within the deep
foundation community.
Since its establishment, the Journal has
maintained its aim of providing a unique,
focused, technically rigorous product for
the foundation community by concentrating on practice-oriented research within
the field. The areas covered include piling
systems such as drilled shafts and driven
piles, load testing, ground improvement,

soil nailing and anchors, energy foundations, seismic issues of foundation
engineering, design standards, codes and
contracts, tunneling and other areas of
foundation design such as innovative
construction technologies, material
research, nondestructive testing and
evaluation, and the historical evolution of
deep foundations.
As part of restructuring and upgrading
the Journal, we focused on visibility and
reach, technical quality and representation
of all deep foundation sectors, and
infrastructure and compliance.
Since 2019, DFI has self-published this
publication, which allows more control
over the publication process, from manuscript receipt to final print or online
publication. We work directly with authors
and typesetters to ensure all papers meet
our publication standards. Self-publishing
also allows more flexibility in publication
timing, such as adding in special issues
as needed.
To enhance web visibility and to provide
a more user-friendly online presence, we are
also developing a new Journal platform that
will feature content in a more organized,
easily searchable manner. The platform will
be part of DFI's website upgrade, and will go
live in December 2020. Our easily navigable
pages will allow for direct access to all
volumes, including Journal articles and
papers published digitally ahead of print.
Manuscripts will be immediately
downloadable by logged in members with
one click and can be purchased by
nonmembers. Each paper's webpage will
include statistics on views and downloads.
Furthermore, the web platform will make
web retrieval better by featuring all Journalrelated content (e.g., new releases, award
papers, competition details and editor's
choice papers). This will greatly benefit
authors and increase the publication's
visibility.
The website will also host author
guidelines and resources, content on
publication ethics, review guidance and
other information. Moreover, the Journal
board recently arranged to provide an open

access publication option to authors for
minimal fees (compared to other civil
engineering journals). No log in or
membership will be required to read and
download open access papers. This means
authors can make their work more broadly
available, while maintaining the copyright.
Additionally, we are applying for a
Journal Impact Factor, which is an
established scientometric measure that
indicates the number of citations articles
receive, with Clarivate Analytics also
indicating the publication's importance
within its field. We strongly believe that an
Impact Factor is needed to (a) increase
Journal recognition as a technical resource
among peer geotechnical engineering
publications, (b) have papers be included in
t h e We b o f S c i e n c e ( Wo S , a t
webofknowledge.com), which is an online
platform of the most reputable scientific
journals, (c) obtain official citation statistics
through the WoS, (d) gain recognition as a
niche journal about practice-oriented
research and directly applicable studies, (e)
increase article citations and reach, and (f)
enable academic researchers to receive
credit for DFI Journal submission, since
most universities require their submission
to "impact-factor only journals."
We also have new author and reviewer
guidelines, including detailed instructions
for high-quality paper preparation that
involve downloadable templates in Microsoft
Word for direct use if desired. The reviewer
guidelines are intended for those who are
not familiar with the publication's review
process, regarding details about technical
quality, noncommercial content, illustration
quality and manuscript organization.
Moreover, the Journal recently became
part of Crossref, a platform to increase
online access to scholarly works. Each
paper receives a unique digital object
identifier (DOI) code and will be subject to
a similarity check to preserve the authors'
intellectual contributions and prevent
plagiarism. Our revised front page for
online articles now also includes information on the article submission, review
and acceptance processes.

DEEP FOUNDATIONS * SEPT/OCT 2020 * 63

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DFI Magazine September/October 2020

Table of Contents for the Digital Edition of DFI Magazine September/October 2020