Preparing your materials

Aims and scope

Data-Centric Engineering (DCE) is a peer-reviewed, open access journal publishing at the intersection of data science and all areas of engineering – for example, civil, mechanical, aeronautical, materials, electrical, industrial, chemical. Papers cover the use of data science methods to model systems downstream from the lab in order to build prototypes and engineering solutions that are safer, more resilient, more efficient and fitter for purpose.

Freely available to read, share and distribute, DCE welcomes contributions from industry as well as academia.

The DCE Executive Editorial team - who bring a wealth of expertise in the use of data in different areas of engineering - and the advisory Editorial Board can be seen on this page.

Types of article

DCE publishes the following peer-reviewed article types. Suggested word counts are simply a guide and are not strictly enforced, given that DCE is online-only and open access.

Research articles using data science methods and models for improving the reliability, resilience, safety, efficiency and usability of engineered systems.
Translational papers (6,000 words or less) demonstrating the downstream benefits of data-intensive engineering - and the underlying data science principles, techniques and technologies - to wider society, economy, environment, health and way of life. For more detail see this Call for Translational Contributions.
Data papers that describe in a structured way, with a narrative and accompanying metadata, important and re-usable data sets in open repositories with potential for re-use in engineering research and practice. The Data Availability Statement in the paper should link to the data set. Zenodo is a free-to-use and reliable open data repository based at CERN; this where to share your data page also has advice on open data repositories to use.
Survey papers providing a detailed, balanced and authoritative current account of the existing literature concerning data-intensive methods in a particular facet of engineering sciences.
Tutorial reviews providing an introduction and overview of an important topic of relevance to the journal readership. The topic should be of relevance to both students and researchers who are new to the field as well as experts and provide a good introduction to the development of a subject, its current state and indications of future directions the field is expected to take
Position papers (4,000 words or less) providing an overview of an important issue for this emerging field.

* All or part of the publication costs for these article types may be covered by one of the agreements Cambridge University Press has made to support open access. For authors not covered by an agreement, and without APC funding, please see this journal's open access options for instructions on how to request an APC waiver.

The LaTeX, Overleaf and Word templates provided here can be used to help you prepare articles. All articles should be submitted via the DCE ScholarOne system.

Article preparation

All submissions should be made through the DCE ScholarOne system.

Templates

Data-Centric Engineering research article templates are available for download here:

DCE LaTeX template files
Use Overleaf (a LaTeX-based collaborative authoring tool; read about benefits of this tool)
DCE Word template

Translational papers

We have created a LaTeX template specifically for Translational Papers that includes a 'Lessons Learned' box:

DCE Translational Paper template files

Cover letter

Authors are prompted to provide a short cover letter to the editors through a form in the ScholarOne system.

Article file

The article must contain the following:

Title

A concise, informative and grammatically correct title, including determiner (e.g. “A Deep kernel learning approach to engine emissions modeling” rather than “Deep kernel learning approach to engine emissions modeling”)

Author details

The names and affiliations of the authors (university, department, city and country), indicating with asterisk the corresponding author and his/her email address

Authorship should be based on the following principles, as outlined by the ICMJE and in the Cambridge University Press Publishing Ethics Guidelines:

Substantial contributions to the conception or design of the work; or the acquisition, analysis, or interpretation of data for the work;
Drafting the work or revising it critically for important intellectual content;
Final approval of the version to be published;
Agreement to be accountable for all aspects of the work in ensuring that questions related to the accuracy or integrity of any part of the work are appropriately investigated and resolved.

In the process of submitting the article through the DCE ScholarOne system, the corresponding author is prompted to provide further details about contributions to the article using the CRediT taxonomy. People who have contributed to the article but do not meet the full criteria for authorship should be recognised in the acknowledgments section; their contribution can be described in terms of the CRediT taxonomy.

Abstract

This is a summary of the full article and be no more than 250 words in length.

Impact statement

Beneath the abstract authors must provide a 120 word impact statement that focuses on the significance of the paper – not detailing the full methodology - in language that can be quickly grasped by a wider and multidisciplinary audience (industry, government, wider academia) and to aid impact, citation and dissemination.

Keywords

Provide up to five keywords, separated by semi colons.

Main text

The body of the article, which can be separated using headings and subheadings.

Figures

Submitting your figures, illustrations, pictures and other artwork (such as multimedia and supplementary files) in an electronic format alongside the main article file helps us produce your work to the best possible standards, ensuring accuracy, clarity, and a high level of detail.

Please see our Journals Artwork Guide for more information.

Abbreviations

If abbreviations are used in the text they should be defined in the text at first use. A list of abbreviations should be provided at the end of the main text.

Disclosure statements

Following the main text, articles must include the following disclosure statements in the interest of transparency:

Acknowledgments (optional)

Authors can provide an acknowledgments statement that recognises associates and colleagues who contributed to the article but do not meet the criteria for authorship, as well as other kinds of non-financial support from individuals and organisations. This is optional and it should not contain information that would otherwise be in data availability, competing interest and funding statements, which are required.

Data availability statement (required)

Research articles must contain sufficient information to allow others to understand, verify, and replicate findings. See the DCE Transparency and Openness Promotion (TOP) policy for more details.

The article must contain a Data Availability Statement explaining how data and other resources were created, from where they are available, along with information about any restrictions on the accessibility of data and other resources.

Examples:

Data availability: The data that support the findings of this study are openly available in [repository name] at http://doi.org/, reference number [reference number].

Data availability: The data that support the findings will be available in [repository name] at [URL / DOI link] following a [6 month] embargo from the date of publication to allow for commercialisation of research findings.

Data availability: The data that support the findings of this study are available from [third party]. Restrictions apply to the availability of these data, which were used under licence for this study. Data are available [from the authors / at URL] with the permission of [third party].

Funding statement (required)

This must detail the sources of financial support for all authors in relation to the article, including grant numbers, or declare that no specific funding exists. The statement should also make it clear whether the funder had a role in study design, data collection and analysis, decision to publish, or preparation of the manuscript.

For example:

“This work was supported by the National Science Foundation (NSF) under research grant XXXX. The funder had no role in study design, data collection and analysis, decision to publish, or preparation of the manuscript.”

Where no specific funding has been provided for research, please provide the following statement: “This work received no specific grant from any funding agency, commercial or not-for-profit sectors.”

Overleaf

Overleaf is a free online tool for writing and submitting scholarly manuscripts. An Overleaf template is available for this journal, which allows authors to easily comply with the journal’s guidelines. There is also a direct link to submit your manuscript from within the Overleaf authoring environment. Once you have completed writing an article in Overleaf, you can use the "Submit to Journal" button and select the appropriate link to be directed to this journal's manuscript submission system.

Benefits of using Overleaf include:

An intuitive interface, in which authors can write in LaTeX or rich text and see a preview of their article typeset in the journal’s style
Features enabling collaboration with co-authors (the ability to share, highlight and comment on versions of articles)
Sophisticated version control
Clean PDF conversion and submission into the journal’s online manuscripts system (supporting materials can also be added during this process)

Overleaf is based on LaTeX but includes a rich text mode. An author writing in Overleaf would need to have some knowledge of LaTeX, but could collaborate through the tool with an author who is not a LaTeX expert. Overleaf’s tutorial pages include a two minute video and an introduction to LaTeX course, and Overleaf also provides support for authors using the tool.

Research transparency

Data-Centric Engineering believes that research articles should contain sufficient information to allow others to understand, verify, and replicate findings. The journal requires authors to provide a data availability statement in their article on submission and awards Open Practice Badges to articles linking to openly available replication data and materials. For more details, see the research transparency policy.

Authorship and contributorship

All authors listed on any papers submitted to this journal must be in agreement that the authors listed would all be considered authors according to disciplinary norms, and that no authors who would reasonably be considered an author have been excluded. For further details on this journal’s authorship policy, please see this journal's publishing ethics policies.

CRediT taxonomy for contributors

When submitting a manuscript, the corresponding author will be prompted to provide further details concerning contributions to the manuscript using the CRediT taxonomy. CRediT (Contributor Roles Taxonomy) is a high-level taxonomy, including 14 designated options, that can be used to represent the roles typically played by contributors to scholarly output. All parties who have contributed to the scholarly work, but do not meet the full criteria for authorship, should be recognised with their contributions described in terms of the CRediT taxonomy.

Our default position is that the corresponding author has the authority to act on behalf of all co-authors, and we expect the corresponding author to confirm this at the beginning of the submission process. When preparing your manuscript you should also ensure that you obtain permission from all contributors to describe their contributions using the CRediT taxonomy.

Author affiliations

Author affiliations should represent the institution(s) at which the research presented was conducted and/or supported and/or approved. For non-research content, any affiliations should represent the institution(s) with which each author is currently affiliated.

For more information, please see our author affiliation policy and author affiliation FAQs.

Policy on prior publication

When authors submit manuscripts to this journal, these manuscripts should not be under consideration, accepted for publication or in press within a different journal, book or similar entity, unless explicit permission or agreement has been sought from all entities involved. However, deposition of a preprint on the author’s personal website, in an institutional repository, or in a preprint archive shall not be viewed as prior or duplicate publication. Authors should follow the Cambridge University Press Preprint Policy regarding preprint archives and maintaining the version of record.

Competing Interests

All authors must include a competing interest declaration in their main manuscript file. This declaration will be subject to editorial review and may be published in the article.

Competing interests are situations that could be perceived to exert an undue influence on the content or publication of an author’s work. They may include, but are not limited to, financial, professional, contractual or personal relationships or situations.

If the manuscript has multiple authors, the author submitting must include competing interest declarations relevant to all contributing authors.

Example wording for a declaration is as follows: “Competing interests: Author 1 is employed at organisation A, Author 2 is on the Board of company B and is a member of organisation C. Author 3 has received grants from company D.” If no competing interests exist, the declaration should state “Competing interests: The author(s) declare none”.

Supplementary materials

Material that is not essential to understanding or supporting a manuscript, but which may nonetheless be relevant or interesting to readers, may be submitted as supplementary material. Supplementary material will be published online alongside your article, but will not be published in the pages of the journal. Types of supplementary material may include, but are not limited to, appendices, additional tables or figures, datasets, videos, and sound files.

Supplementary materials will not be typeset or copyedited, so should be supplied exactly as they are to appear online. Please see our general guidance on supplementary materials for further information.

Where relevant we encourage authors to publish additional qualitative or quantitative research outputs in an appropriate repository, and cite these in manuscripts.

Publishing ethics

Authors should check the DCE publishing ethics policies while preparing their materials.

Note that authors should provide a Competing Interest statement, Funding Statement and a Data Availability Statement in their article, as detailed above. See the DCE research transparency page for detailed policy on sharing data, code and other replication materials.

Seeking permissions for copyrighted material

Authors are responsible for obtaining necessary permissions to quote or reproduce material, including figures, from already published works and/or any copyrighted material. If a figure is from another source, this should be credited appropriately in the figure legend along with any terms of any re-use.

For further advice, see this page on seeking permission to use copyrighted material.

Use of artificial intelligence (AI) tools

We acknowledge the increasing use of artificial intelligence (AI) tools in the research and writing processes. To ensure transparency, we expect any such use to be declared and described fully to readers, and to comply with our plagiarism policy and best practices regarding citation and acknowledgements. We do not consider artificial intelligence (AI) tools to meet the accountability requirements of authorship, and therefore generative AI tools such as ChatGPT and similar should not be listed as an author on any submitted content.

In particular, any use of an AI tool:

to generate images within the manuscript should be accompanied by a full description of the process used, and declared clearly in the image caption(s).
to generate text within the manuscript should be accompanied by a full description of the process used, include appropriate and valid references and citations, and be declared in the manuscript’s Acknowledgements.
to analyse or extract insights from data or other materials, for example through the use of text and data mining, should be accompanied by a full description of the process used, including details and appropriate citation of any dataset(s) or other material analysed in all relevant and appropriate areas of the manuscript.
must not present ideas, words, data, or other material produced by third parties without appropriate acknowledgement or permission.

Descriptions of AI processes used should include at minimum the version of the tool/algorithm used, where it can be accessed, any proprietary information relevant to the use of the tool/algorithm, any modifications of the tool made by the researchers (such as the addition of data to a tool’s public corpus), and the date(s) it was used for the purpose(s) described. Any relevant competing interests or potential bias arising as a consequence of the tool/algorithm’s use should be transparently declared and may be discussed in the article.

Acknowledgements

Authors can use this section to acknowledge and thank colleagues, institutions, workshop organisers, family members, etc. that have helped with the research and/or writing process. It is important that that any type of funding information or financial support is listed under ‘Financial Support’ rather than Acknowledgements so that it can be recorded separately (see here).

We are aware that authors sometimes receive assistance from technical writers, language editors, artificial intelligence (AI) tools, and/or writing agencies in drafting manuscripts for publication. Such assistance must be noted in the cover letter and in the Acknowledgements section, along with a declaration that the author(s) are entirely responsible for the scientific content of the paper and that the paper adheres to the journal’s authorship policy. Failure to acknowledge assistance from technical writers, language editors, AI tools and/or writing agencies in drafting manuscripts for publication in the cover letter and in the Acknowledgements section may lead to disqualification of the paper. Examples of how to acknowledge assistance in drafting manuscripts:

“The author(s) thank [name and qualifications] of [company, city, country] for providing [medical/technical/language] writing support/editorial support [specify and/or expand as appropriate], which was funded by [sponsor, city, country]."
“The author(s) made use of [AI system/tool] to assist with the drafting of this article. [AI version details] was accessed/obtained from [source details] and used with/without modification [specify and/or expand as appropriate] on [date(s)].

ORCID

We require all corresponding authors to identify themselves using ORCID when submitting a manuscript to this journal. ORCID provides a unique identifier for researchers and, through integration with key research workflows such as manuscript submission and grant applications, provides the following benefits:

Discoverability: ORCID increases the discoverability of your publications, by enabling smarter publisher systems and by helping readers to reliably find work that you have authored.
Convenience: As more organisations use ORCID, providing your iD or using it to register for services will automatically link activities to your ORCID record, and will enable you to share this information with other systems and platforms you use, saving you re-keying information multiple times.
Keeping track: Your ORCID record is a neat place to store and (if you choose) share validated information about your research activities and affiliations.

See our ORCID FAQs for more information.

If you don’t already have an iD, you will need to create one if you decide to submit a manuscript to this journal. You can register for one directly from your user account on ScholarOne, or alternatively via https://ORCID.org/register.

If you already have an iD, please use this when submitting your manuscript, either by linking it to your ScholarOne account, or by supplying it during submission using the "Associate your existing ORCID iD" button.

ORCIDs can also be used if authors wish to communicate to readers up-to-date information about how they wish to be addressed or referred to (for example, they wish to include pronouns, additional titles, honorifics, name variations, etc.) alongside their published articles. We encourage authors to make use of the ORCID profile’s “Published Name” field for this purpose. This is entirely optional for authors who wish to communicate such information in connection with their article. Please note that this method is not currently recommended for author name changes: see Cambridge’s author name change policy if you want to change your name on an already published article. See our ORCID FAQs for more information.

Author Hub

You can find guides for many aspects of publishing with Cambridge at Author Hub, our suite of resources for Cambridge authors.

English language editing services

Authors, particularly those whose first language is not English, may wish to have their English-language manuscripts checked by a native speaker before submission. This step is optional, but may help to ensure that the academic content of the paper is fully understood by the Editor and any reviewers.

In order to help prospective authors to prepare for submission and to reach their publication goals, Cambridge University Press offers a range of high-quality manuscript preparation services, including language editing. You can find out more on our language services page.

Please note that the use of any of these services is voluntary, and at the author's own expense. Use of these services does not guarantee that the manuscript will be accepted for publication, nor does it restrict the author to submitting to a Cambridge-published journal.