The Arid Zone Journal of Engineering, Technology and Environment is peer reviewed journal with the objectives to explore, develop and elucidate the knowledge of Engineering design and technology, to keep Practitioners and Researchers informed on current issues and best practices, as well as serving as a platform for the exchange of ideas, knowledge and expertise among technology researchers and practitioners.

AZOJETE is published by the Faculty of Engineering, University of Maiduguri, Nigeria.

p-ISSN: 1596-2490 | e-ISSN: 2545-5818
PUBLICATIONS: MARCH, JUNE, SEPTEMBER AND DECEMBER

AZOJETE is currently indexed in the following indexing platforms
GoogleScholar, DOAJ, DRJI, ACADEMIA, ResearchBib, AcademicKeys, CiteFactor,  Bielefeld University Library, IIJIF, SIS, Cosmos Impact Factor, JournalTOCs, OAJI,  Journal Factor, SPARC Indexing, OpenAIRE, Eurasian Scientific Journal Index, Electronic Journals Library, ISI, Social Science Research Centre Berlin, WorldCat, International Institute of Organized Research (I2OR), StudyLIB,  Journal Finder, University of Saskatchewan Library,  ScopeMed, Microsoft Academic, PKP Index, efita, JournalFinder, Publons, Ghent University Library, University Library of Regensburg, University of Groningen Library, University of Georgia, Berkeley Library University of California, ProQuest

OPEN ACCESS POLICY
AZOJETE publishes fully open access journals, which means that all articles are available on the internet to all users immediately upon publication. Non-commercial use and distribution in any medium is permitted, provided the author and the journal are properly credited.
Benefits of open access for authors, include:
i. Free access for all users worldwide
ii. Authors retain copyright to their work
iii. Increased visibility and readership
iv. Rapid publication
v. No spatial constraints

LICENSE TERM
The non-commercial use of the article will be governed by the Creative Commons Attribution-NonCommercial-NoDerivs license as currently displayed on http://creativecommons.org/licenses/by-nc-nd/4.0/,

PEER REVIEW POLICY
All articles published in AZOJETE must undergo peer review. Peer-review is defined as obtaining advice on individual manuscripts from reviewers’ expert in the field.
AZOJETE uses a double-blind review system in which the author and reviewer do not know each other. This ensures that there should be no conflict of interest, high confidentiality and for objective reviewing of articles for qualitative publications. Review takes approximately 6 weeks from date of receipt of paper. Papers submitted to AZOJETE are usually sent out for review within 48 hours. Articles will be subjected to and must pass a plagiarism check before it can be sent out for peer review.
A key policy is that articles submitted to AZOJETE should not have been nor will be submitted to any other journal or conference while still under review or after being accepted for publication.
The contents of the articles are the sole opinion of the author(s) and not of AZOJETE
AZOJETE reserves the exclusive right to distribution of the published articles in any media.
A copyright and statement of originality documents will need to be filled out clearly and signed prior to publication of an accepted article.

Publication Frequency
Four Issues are published in batches annually.
Issue 1 - March
Issue 2 - June
Issue 3 - September
Issue 4 - December

Policy in Relation to Plagiarism, Infringement of Copyright, Moral Rights and Submission of Multiple Publications
Arid Zone Journal of Enginevering, Technology and Environment (“AZOJETE”) will not tolerate submission of works to which contain plagiarised material or infringe the copyright or moral rights of third parties.
Plagiarism is the act of dishonestly copying or taking advantage of, the work of another author as if it were your own, without acknowledgement. Plagiarism can take many forms including word for word copying of another work, or simply copying the ideas from another work without attribution.
Plagiarism includes so called “self-plagiarism”, which is the submission of one’s own previously published material to a new publication, without informing the publisher of the new publication that the work has been previously published.
There is also a concern where authors submit the same work to multiple publications. This can waste the time of publishers and reviewers and this policy therefore aims to prevent this.
Copyright infringement is unlawful and occurs when a substantial part of the work of another author is copied without consent.
Authors have certain moral rights which include the right to object to derogatory treatment of a copyright work. Infringement of moral rights occurs if a person publishes commercially or communicates to the public a derogatory treatment of the work of another author. A derogatory treatment of a work is any addition to, deletion from or alteration to or adaptation of the work which amounts to distortion or mutilation of the work or is otherwise prejudicial to the honour or reputation of the author. Moral rights of authors also include the right to be identified as the author of a copyright work (if the author has asserted this right), and breaching this right would also constitute an infringement of moral rights.

RESPONSIBILITIES OF THE AUTHORS
Before submitting any work to AZOJETE the author(s) must make sure that:
i. the author(s) owns all of the rights in the work including the copyright in the work;
ii. the work is the author(s)’s own original work and is not copied wholly or substantially from any other work or material or any other source;
iii. the work does not infringe the copyright or other rights of any third party;
iv. the author(s) has the right to license or assign (as applicable) the copyright in the work;
v. the work or any version of it has not previously been published or submitted for publication except as specifically informed to AZOJETE at the time of submission; and
vi. the author has not submitted the work or any substantially similar work to another publication and will not do so unless AZOJETE decides not to publish the work.

PROCEDURE WHERE A WORK HAS BEEN SUBMITTED, BUT NOT PUBLISHED
If AZOJETE becomes aware that a work may contain plagiarised material or infringe copyright or moral rights belonging to a third party before publication, AZOJETE will contact the author(s) to highlight the issue that has arisen and ask for the author(s)’s explanation of the apparent problem.

The following is a non-exhaustive list of actions that may be taken by AZOJETE in such circumstances:
i. No response or unsatisfactory response: If no response is received or an unsatisfactory response is received to AZOJETE’s query:
the work may immediately be withdrawn from the editorial/review process and may not be published;
AZOJETE may inform the author(s) that no further action with respect to progressing the reviewing/editorial handling of the work will take place and that AZOJETE will not consider for publication works written by the author(s) for a period of 5 years; and the editor or editorial board of AZOJETE publications and members of staff employed by AZOJETE may also be informed of these actions only on a need to know basis.

ii. Response admitting mistake: In the case of minor mistakes (for example omitting to include proper citation of the source of reproduced material) AZOJETE may request from the author(s) some wording for use in noting any correction to the online version by adding a note to the metadata or adding an additional separate PDF, or in the case of a print version for use in printing an erratum note in a subsequent issue before progressing the editorial process.

iii. In the case of misconduct, AZOJETE may adopt any or all of the responses and actions listed above

iv. Submitting a similar work to more than one publication: If prior to publication, it is found that an author(s) has submitted a work or substantially similar work concurrently to more than one publication without informing AZOJETE, AZOJETE will inform the author
(a) that it believes the same work or substantially similar work had been submitted to another publication and
(b) whether AZOJETE will reject the work or would like to discuss publication of the work with the publisher of the other publication.

v. If prior to publication, it is found that the work or a substantially similar work has already been published previously in another publication, AZOJETE will inform the author that it believes the same work or a substantially similar work has been published in another publication and AZOJETE may reject the work.

vi. Any repeat occurrence may result in a similar process to that described in section 9.1 above except that AZOJETE may not consider for publication works written by the author(s) for a period of 1 year.

PROCEDURE WHERE A WORK HAS ALREADY BEEN PUBLISHED
If AZOJETE has published a work and subsequently becomes aware of matters which give rise to a reasonable suspicion that the work contains plagiarised material or material that infringes copyright or moral rights then AZOJETE may immediately withdraw the work from the relevant publication.
- In respect of AZOJETE Digital Library, the metadata, (Title and Authors) may be retained, but the PDF may be removed and replaced by a notice indicating the work is currently unavailable; and
If AZOJETE withdraws publication of a work in this manner AZOJETE may then follow the procedure set out in sections 11 and 12 below.
If AZOJETE becomes aware that a work may contain plagiarised material or infringe copyright or moral rights belonging to a third party after publication, AZOJETE will inform the author(s) that an issue has arisen and ask for the author(s)’s explanation of the apparent problem.

The following is a non-exhaustive list of actions that may be taken by AZOJETE in such circumstances:
1. No response or unsatisfactory response: If no response is received or an unsatisfactory response is received to AZOJETE’s query:
the work may be withdrawn from the relevant publication:
(i) In respect of AZOJETE, the metadata, (Title and Authors) may be retained, but the PDF may be removed and replaced by a notice indicating the work has been retracted.
(ii) AZOJETE may request that AJOL simultaneously takes down the PDF from their database and leaves in place similar metadata and a similar retraction notice to that retained on AZOJETE website.
(iii) If the work has also been printed, in the next available issue of the publication AZOJETE may publish a retraction note (included in the contents list) with respect to the work.
AZOJETE may inform the author(s) that the work will be withdrawn from the relevant publication and that AZOJETE may not consider for publication works written by the author(s) for a period of 5 years;
AZOJETE may not consider for publication works written by the author(s) for a period of 5 years; and
the editor or editorial board of AZOJETE publications and members of staff employed by AZOJETE may also be informed of these actions only on a need to know basis.

2. Response admitting mistake: If the author(s) responds admitting a mistake:
In the case of minor mistakes (for example omitting to include proper citation of the source of reproduced material) AZOJETE may request from the author(s) some wording for use in noting any correction to the online version by adding a note to the metadata or adding an additional separate PDF, or in the case of a print version for use in printing an erratum note in a subsequent issue.
In the case of misconduct, AZOJETE may adopt any or all of the responses and actions listed above. Similar material published in more than one publication

3. Where it is discovered after publication of the work that the work or a substantially similar work has been published previously in another publication, AZOJETE will inform the author that it believes the same work had been published in another publication and AZOJETE may withdraw the work from AZOJETE publication. Any repeat occurrence may result in a similar process to that described above except that AZOJETE may not consider for publication works written by the author(s) for a period of 1 year.

DISCIPLINARY PROCEDURES FOR MEMBERS
Where the author(s) is a member of AZOJETE and AZOJETE believes that the author(s) may have acted contrary to the Bye-laws of AZOJETE than the matter may be referred to the Disciplinary Board of AZOJETE together with the facts as known.

DISPUTES BETWEEN AUTHORS AND THIRD PARTIES
This section will be followed if there is a dispute between a third party and an author whereby a third party has made an allegation of plagiarism or infringement of copyright or moral rights against an author(s) of a work submitted to AZOJETE for publication or published by AZOJETE. Where such a dispute arises:
the author(s) and the third party should endeavour to resolve their difficulties independently of AZOJETE;
(i) AZOJETE will not act to decide the dispute between the third party and the author;
(ii) AZOJETE will not agree to act as an arbitrator or mediator on either a formal or an informal basis in any such dispute but does encourage the parties to resolve the matter amicably between themselves;
(iii) AZOJETE will decide for its own internal purposes on the basis of the procedures set out in the sections above, whether or not to publish a work or withdraw publication of a work if it has already been published; and
(iv) AZOJETE reserves the right not to publish any work that is the subject of a dispute until the dispute has been resolved.

When such a dispute is finally resolved through Court proceedings or by arbitration or mediation by the author(s) and the third party, and the outcome referred to AZOJETE, a decision as to whether or not to publish a work, or re-instate a work which has been withdrawn, will be taken by AZOJETE.
If AZOJETE itself is accused of infringement of copyright or moral rights, AZOJETE will take such steps as it deems appropriate to defend its interests.