Focus and Scope

International Business Logistics (IBL) Journal is a biannual peer-reviewed  scholarly open access journal published by Arab Academy for Science, Technology & Maritime Transport. IBL presents a global forum for dissemination of research articles, case studies and reviews focusing on all aspects of logistics and its role in business development worldwide. While articles in any area of business logistics and its related fields are welcomed, the journal is especially interested in those dealing with management applications of theory and techniques. Articles which provide new knowledge and guidelines for conceptualizing, interpreting or executing the logistics activities and processes are of particular interest. All articles are anonymously reviewed for publication by referees, who look for original ideas that are clearly presented as a contribution to scientific knowledge. IBL Journal publishes original and challenging work that has clear applicability to the business world. High quality contributions are therefore welcomed from both academics and professionals working in the field of management, logistics, supply chain management, transportation and all related fields.

The IBL aims to :

1. present to the international community important results of work in the fields of Business Logistics research to help researchers, scientists, manufacturers, institutions, world agencies, societies to keep up with new developments in theory and applications.
2. provide a platform for new thinking on (new) problems, practices, and techniques of logistics and its related fields.
3. facilitate the interchange of information about business logistics among business managers and researchers on a worldwide basis.
4. to provide executives and teachers with reports of current developments in the field of business logistics.

Subject areas suitable for publication include, but are not limited to the following fields:

• Logistics
• Supply chain management
• Reverse logistics and green supply chain
• Supply chain resilience
• Modelling of the supply chain and transportation simulations
• Transport systems and processes
• Multimodal transport
• Maritime transport economics
• Retailing
• Last mile logistics
• Sustainable development
• Blockchain
• Global supply chain risk management
• Digital transformation in logistics and supply chain

In addition, IBL also covers multidisciplinary  areas such as supply chain finance, supply chain marketing, cross-functional relationships, human resources management in the field of logistics etc.

Section Policies

Editorials

Open Submissions

Indexed

Peer Reviewed

Articles

Open Submissions

Indexed

Peer Reviewed

Book Reviews

Open Submissions

Indexed

Peer Reviewed

Peer Review Process

Peer review is an objective process at the heart of good scholarly publishing and is carried out on all reputable scientific journals. Our referees, therefore, play a vital role in maintaining the high standards of IBL and all manuscripts are peer-reviewed following the procedure outlined below.

Overall process for publishing a paper will be taken approximately 2 months after initial submission. Reviewing process will take about one months, and then the publishing process will not exceed one more month.

     1. Initial manuscript evaluation

The Editor first evaluates all manuscripts. It is rare, but it is entirely feasible for an exceptional manuscript to be accepted at this stage. Those rejected at this stage are insufficiently original, have serious scientific flaws, have poor grammar or English language, or are outside the aims and scope of the journal.  Those that meet the minimum criteria are passed on to at least 2 experts for review.

Authors of manuscripts rejected at this stage will normally be informed within 2 to 3 weeks of receipt.

     2. Type of Peer Review

This journal employs single-blind reviewing, the author's identity is disclosed to the referee, while the referee remains anonymous throughout the process.

     3. How the referee is selected

Referees are matched to the paper according to their expertise. Our database is constantly being updated. IBL has a policy of using single-blind refereeing (as detailed in the previous section), with neither referee from the country of the submitting author. We welcome suggestions for referees from the author, though these recommendations may or may not be used. All submitted articles are sent to two reviewers.

      4. Referee reports

Referees are asked to evaluate whether the manuscript support followings key points related to scientific content, quality and presentation:

4.1.  Technical

• Scientific merit: notably scientific rigour, accuracy and correctness.
• Clarity of expression; communication of ideas; readability and discussion of concepts.
• Sufficient discussion of the context of the work, and suitable referencing.

4.2.  Quality

• Originality: Is the work relevant and novel?
• Motivation: Does the problem considered have a sound motivation? All papers should clearly demonstrate the scientific interest of the results.
• Repetition: Have significant parts of the manuscript already been published?
• Length: Is the content of the work of sufficient scientific interest to justify its length?

4.3.  Presentation

• Title: Is it adequate and appropriate for the content of the article?
• Abstract: Does it contain the essential information of the article? Is it complete? Is it suitable for inclusion by itself in an abstracting service?
• Diagrams, figures, tables and captions: Are they essential and clear?
• Text and mathematics: Are they brief but still clear? If you recommend shortening, please suggest what should be omitted.
• Conclusion: Does the paper contain a carefully written conclusion, summarizing what has been learned and why it is interesting and useful?

Referees are not expected to correct or copy-edit manuscripts. Language correction is not part of the peer-review process.

     5. How long does the review process take?

Typically, the manuscript will be reviewed within one month. Should the referees’ reports contradict one another or a report is unnecessarily delayed a further expert opinion will be sought. All our referees sign a conflict-of-interest statement. Revised manuscripts are usually returned to the initial referees within 1 week. Referees may request more than one revision of a manuscript.

     6. Editorial decisions

After peer review and referee recommendation, the editor-in-chief, with the assistance of the associate editor, will study the paper together with reviewer comments to make one of the following decisions.

• Accept
• Accept pending minor revision: no external review required
• Reject/Resubmit: major revisions needed and a new peer-review required
• Reject 

     7.  Final report

A final decision to accept or reject the manuscript will be sent to the author along with any recommendations made by the referees, and may include verbatim comments by the referees.

     8. Special issues and/or conference proceedings

Special issues and/or conference proceedings may have different peer review procedures involving, for example, Guest Editors, conference organisers or scientific committees. Authors contributing to these projects may receive full details of the peer review process on request from the editorial office.   Prospective organisers of a Special Issue should contact the Editor in the first instance to agree the appropriateness of content, the number and size of papers, the refereeing process (including the names of prospective referees), and the timescale for receipt of final copy after reviewing.

 

All manuscripts should be submitted through our editorial system by the corresponding author.

A separate author account is required for IBL. If this is your first time submitting to this journal, please choose the Create an account or Register now option in the editorial system. If you already have an IBL Journal login, you are welcome to reuse the existing username and password here.

Please note, the next time you log into the system, you will be asked for your username. This will be the email address you entered when you set up your account.

     9. Charges and Fees

The journal is open-access with no charges (either Articles Processing Charges 'APCs' nor any submission charges). So IBL is free of charge for authors and readers, and operates an online submission with the peer review system allowing authors to submit articles online and track their progress via its web interface.

Publication Frequency

This journal is published 2 times per year.

Each one volume per year has two issues, namley, one in June and one in December of each year.

Special issue could be issued separately sometime between the regular issues. This will be announced before publishing the special issue.

Open Access Policy

IBL journal provides immediate open access to all content on the principle that making research freely available to the public supports a greater global exchange of knowledge. IBL grants usage rights to others using the open license CC-BY-NC allowing for immediate free access to the work and permitting any user to read, download, copy, distribute, print, search, or link to the full texts of articles, crawl them for indexing, pass them as data to software, or use them for any other lawful purpose.

Publishing Ethics

IBL and our editors are fully committed to ethical publication practice. We act in accordance with the principles outlined by the Committee on Publication Ethics (COPE) and support the development, and practical application, of consistent ethical standards throughout the scholarly publishing community.

• IBL is committed to maintaining the highest standards of publication ethics and to supporting ethical research practices.
• IBL adheres to follow the Committee on Publication Ethics “COPE” Code of Conduct for Journal Editors.
• IBL would like to refer reviewers to the Committee on Publication Ethics “COPE” Ethical Guidelines for Peer Reviewers
• IBL would also encourage authors to refer to the Committee on Publication Ethics "COPE" website.
• IBL ensures research has been conducted with the highest standards of rigour and integrity.
• IBL requires the work not to be submitted elsewhere and is not under consideration with any other publication.
• IBL accepts only the work that does not include libellous, defamatory or unlawful statements.
• By submitting your work to IBL you are guaranteeing that the work is not in infringement of any existing copyright.

The essentials of IBL’s publishing ethics for all groups involved in the publishing process are as follows:

Ethics guidelines for editors

• The editors have to declare that by joining the editorial board there is no conflict of interest with any other institutes or journals.
• The editors should maintain the transparency of the academic research & record, preclude professional needs from cooperating ethical standards, and always be willing to publish retractions, rectifications, and erratum when required. 
• The editors should attempt to ensure timely peer review and publication process and should avoid unnecessary delays. 
• The editors and other editorial board members should not be involved in editorial decisions on their own submitted work. They should be excluded from publication decisions when they are authors or even have contributed to a manuscript. 
• The editors should give peer reviewers explicit guidance on their role and responsibilities and monitor their performances for quality and timeliness. 
• The editor should ensure confidential handling of the submitted manuscripts and not disclose any information on submitted manuscripts before their publication.
• The editors should assess manuscripts for their scientific quality content, in an unbiased manner and free from any decisions based on discrimination of race, gender, geographical origin, or religion of the author(s). The editor should evaluate manuscripts regarding to their academic merit free of any self-interests. 
• Promoting research rectitude must be preserved. If at any stage the publisher suspects any kind of misconduct in research, it should be investigated promptly in detail with suitable authority; and if any suspicious act of misconduct is observed in the peer review, it should be resolved with diligence. 

Ethics guidelines for reviewers

• Peer reviewers should provide a detailed, constructive, comprehensive, evidenced, and unbiased evaluation in a timely manner on the scientific content of the submitted work. They should judge each manuscript on its merits, without regard to race, religion, nationality, sex, seniority, academic degree or institutional affiliation of the author(s). 
• Peer reviewers should play an important role in identifying any ethical concerns or misconduct in their evaluation of submitted manuscripts; such as possible data fabrication, falsification, plagiarism, image manipulation, any violation of ethical treatment of animal or human subjects, unethical research, redundant or duplicate publication, conflict of interests and notify the journal editor as the possibility of such problems exists. 
• Peer reviewers should notify the journal editor about any financial or personal conflict of interest and declining to review the manuscript when a possibility of such a conflict exists. 
• Peer reviewers have to declare any conflict of interest with any other institutes or journals.
• Peer reviewers should respect the confidentiality of the complete review process. 
• Peer reviewers should indicate whether the writing is relevant, concise & clear and evaluating the originality and scientific accuracy.
• Peer reviewers must avoid making statements in their report which might affect any person’s reputation. 
• Peer reviewers are required to only agree to peer review manuscripts within their expertise and within a reasonable timeframe. 
• Peer reviewers should notify the journal editor in the case of declining the review in any case. 
• Peer reviewers are required to destroy submitted manuscripts and all related material after they have reviewed them.

Ethics guidelines for authors 

• Authors should make publicly available all the results of their research and are accountable for the completeness and accuracy of their reports. 
• Author(s) should warrant that the submitted manuscript is from their own original work, which does not infringe the intellectual property rights of any other person or entity, and it is free from any kind of plagiarism including their own previously published work. 
• All authors named on the paper are equally held accountable for the content of a submitted manuscript or published paper although having different contributions. 
• The work should not have been published elsewhere or submitted to any other journal(s) at the same time. 
• Author(s) must clearly declare any potential conflict of interest. 
• Author(s) must disclose all sources of funding for the research reported in the paper. 
• If asked to provide a list of suggested reviewers, author(s) must provide the correct details for suitable reviewers with the appropriate experience to review, ensuring that the suggested reviewers do not have a conflict of interest.
• Proper acknowledgements to other work reported (individual/company/institution) must be given. Permission must be obtained from any content used from other sources.

Post-publication discussions policy

• IBL accepts any comment, and critiques from the readers by sending an email to the editor-in-chief.
• Editorial team of each journal is committed to collect all comments and criticisms related to each article and send to the author.
• Authors are committed to response the readers within 4 weeks.

Retraction policy

Articles can be retracted in the following cases:

• A certain plagiarism is detected.
• It reports unethical research
• There’s clear evidence that the findings are unreliable, either as a result of major error (eg, miscalculation or experimental error), or as a result of fabrication (eg, of data) or falsification (eg, image manipulation)
• The findings have previously been published elsewhere without proper attribution to previous sources or disclosure to the editor, permission to republish, or justification (ie, cases of redundant publication)
• It contains material or data without authorization for use
• Copyright has been infringed or there is some other serious legal issue (eg, libel, privacy)
• The author(s) failed to disclose a major competing interest (a.k.a. conflict of interest) that, in the view of the editor, would have unduly affected interpretations of the work or recommendations by editors and peer reviewers.

Complaints and appeals policy

• IBL welcomes any complaints against itself as a journal, members of the editorial boards, and staff of IBLor any journal published by APC.
• Any complaints from any parties can be composed directly to Prof. Dr. Yasser Gaber (ygd@aast.edu) the Dean of research, and manager of Academy Publishing Centre (APC)
• IBL is committed to deal with any complaints or appeals seriously, and give a response within two weeks of the receipt.

Research misconduct policy

IBL allows reporting of research misconduct a published article or a manuscript under peer-review process. The following procedures can be followed for complaints of author misconduct:

1. The editorial board of each journal receives a complaint that an article submitted to or published in the journal is suspected of containing research misconduct.
2. The complainant needs to indicate clearly and directly the specific manner and details of misconduct
3. The editorial board will conduct an investigation, during which time the editor of the journal and the corresponding author(s) of the suspected article will be in contact.
4. The corresponding author(s) will be asked to provide an interpretations and any available evidence.
5. If the author(s) of the suspected article accepts the misconduct complaint, the editorial board will take an action depending on the status of the article:
   1. If the article has been published, retraction may be necessary to remedy the situation.
   2. If the misconduct is reported during the review process, the review process may continue, with the author(s) making the relevant changes.
   3. If there’s no response from the author (s) or an unsatisfactory explanation, the article may be permanently retracted or rejected.
6. The complainant will be informed of the outcome once the issue is resolved. 

IBL Advertising policy

IBL does not accept advertising and sponsorship for its website and social media accounts.

 

Digital Object Identifier, DOI of the IBL

Digital Object Identifier

The IBL is supported by Digital Object Identifier, DOI for each article from Cross Ref as listed in HERE.

The Code of the DOI of each article consists of the following format:

10.21622/IBL.YYYY.VV.I.PPP

Where

10.21622       = Journal Identifier

IBL                = Journal name

YYYY              = Four digits for the year

VV                 = Two digits for the Volume Number 

I                    = One digit for the Issue Number

PPP                = Three digits for the Number of the first page of the article

To look for the paper on line, search for this link

http://dx.doi.org/10.21622/IBL.YYYY.VV.I.PPP