Author Guidelines

The Journal of Geospatial Science and Technology (JGST) is published twice a year by the African Regional Institute for Geospatial Information Science and Technology (AFRIGIST). It publishes research on the application of remote sensing, GIS and related geospatial technologies to the social, economic and environmental challenges confronting African countries.

We consider:

• Original research articles reporting significant new findings.
• Review articles — critical reviews and syntheses of existing research, including systematic reviews.
• Technical papers presenting new methods, techniques, systems or applications.
• Case studies analysing a practical geospatial problem in depth.
• Research notes and short communications — concise reports of significant findings or developments.
• Methodological papers presenting new research approaches and analytical methods.

Manuscripts may be written in English or French. They must be original, must not be a version of work already published, and must not be under consideration by another journal at the same time. Before you write, read the Aims & Scope page: it sets out the subject areas we cover and, just as importantly, the kinds of manuscript we return without review.

Title

Capitalise only the first word and proper nouns, and set the title in bold, centred. Supply a shortened version of the title for use as a running head.

Authors and affiliations

Leave these out of the file you submit. JGST reviews double-blind, so the manuscript must not carry author names, affiliations, contact details or any acknowledgement that identifies you. Enter those details on the submission form instead, where they reach the editors but never the reviewers.

Once a manuscript is accepted, the final version gives the authors' full names centred beneath the title, linked to their affiliations by superscript numbers, with an asterisk marking the corresponding author. Affiliations follow, centred, one per line and numbered 1, 2, 3 in order, and a footnote on the first page gives the corresponding author's email address.

Abstract and keywords

Provide a single unstructured abstract of not more than 300 words summarising the key findings. Both the English and the French versions are published, so supply the abstract in both languages. List at least four keywords beneath it, introduced by the word Keywords in bold.

Headings

Up to three levels of heading may be used.

The first paragraph beneath a heading is not indented; the paragraphs after it are.

Language and style

• Whichever spelling you choose, UK or US, use it consistently throughout.
• Define every acronym at first mention — for example, ‘National Aeronautics and Space Administration (NASA)’ — and use the acronym alone thereafter.
• With ‘e.g.’, ‘i.e.’, ‘cf.’ and ‘etc.’, place the comma before the abbreviation, not after it.
• et al. is set in italics, with no comma before or after it.
• Acknowledgements form their own headed section at the end of the manuscript, before any appendices and the references. Leave them out of the version submitted for review if they would identify you.
• Author biographies are not required.

Figures

• Number figures consecutively in Arabic numerals and cite every one in the text in numerical order — ‘see figure 1’, ‘see figures 1–4’.
• Label the parts of a multi-part figure (a), (b), (c) — figure 1(a), figure 1(b) — with matching italic labels in the caption.
• Label every axis with its units, and use the same symbols as the text.
• Supply figures at a resolution of at least 600 dpi, each with a clear, descriptive caption placed beneath it.

Tables

• Number tables consecutively in Arabic numerals and cite every one in the text in numerical order.
• Place each table's caption above the table — unlike figures, whose captions go beneath.
• Do not use vertical rules.

Equations

• Set scalar variables in italic, vectors in bold italic, and matrices and tensors in bold roman; abbreviations are roman.
• Define every symbol when it is first used.
• Centre each equation and number it consecutively in parentheses, aligned right. Refer to equations in the text as ‘equation (1)’ and ‘equations (2)–(4)’.
• Do not use a dot, an asterisk or ‘×’ as a multiplication sign, and set the differential ‘d’ in roman, not italic.

Numbers and units

• Separate thousands in large numbers with a space, not a comma: 30 000, not 30,000.
• Spell out numbers below ten unless they are paired with a unit of measurement.
• Write decimals with a leading zero: 0.05, not .05.
• Leave a space between a number and its unit, and use SI units throughout (m, kg, s, K, °, rad, W, Hz, ha, l, dB).
• Use an unspaced en dash for ranges and minus signs, and in place of ‘and’ or ‘to’ in compound terms (pp. 1–12, red–green shift); use a spaced en dash for a parenthetical dash.

Appendices

Appendices come immediately before the reference list, lettered Appendix A, Appendix B and so on. Their sections, figures, tables and equations are numbered to match: A.1, A.2; figure A1; table A1; equation (A1). For a systematic review, the PRISMA flow diagram, the full search strings for each database and the complete data-extraction table belong in an appendix rather than the main text.

JGST uses the Harvard name–date system.

Citing in the text

Cite by surname and year — (Smile 2006), (Earth and Moon 2026) — or narratively: ‘Smile (2006) found that…’. For three or more authors, use et al.: (Burst et al. 2010). Where several works are cited together, list them in chronological order within the parentheses, separated by commas.

The reference list

List references alphabetically by the first author's surname, and chronologically where the same author appears more than once. Every work cited in the text must appear in the list, and every work in the list must be cited. Give journal names and author lists in full and full page ranges; issue numbers are not given.

All submissions are made through this website. Create an author account, or sign in to the one you have, and choose Submit New Article.

1. Enter the title, abstract, keywords and the details of every author, in the order they should appear.
2. Upload the manuscript as a single .docx file, anonymised for blind review.
3. Submit, and pay the processing fee (see Fees and Charges below).

You will receive an acknowledgement by email, and can follow the manuscript through every stage under My Submissions. The outcome of review is sent to the corresponding author by email, so keep that address current.

Checklist before you submit

• Is the text written throughout in UK or US English, or in French?
• Is the abstract supplied in both English and French, within 300 words, with at least four keywords?
• Has everything that identifies the authors been removed from the manuscript file?
• Are mathematical symbols set consistently in italic, bold or roman across the text, equations, figures and tables?
• Are SI units used throughout?
• Are all acronyms and abbreviations defined at first mention?
• Have you obtained permission for any figure or other material reproduced from another source, and credited it correctly?
• Are all figures at the highest quality available, and at least 600 dpi?
• Are figures labelled with units, captioned and cited in the text in numerical order, with the parts of multi-part figures labelled (a), (b), (c)?
• Is every reference cited in the text present in the reference list, and the other way round, with journal names and author lists given in full?

Questions about a submission may be sent to chiefeditor@afrigistjournals.com. Manuscripts themselves are only accepted through the website.

JGST operates double-anonymised peer review: reviewers are not told who the authors are, and authors are not told who the reviewers are.

1. Editorial appraisal. The editors check that the manuscript suits the journal — that it is in scope, original, properly prepared and compliant with these guidelines. Unsuitable manuscripts may be declined at this stage rather than sent out, which is faster for everyone.
2. Review. Manuscripts that pass appraisal go to independent reviewers with expertise in the subject, who assess originality, scientific contribution, methodological rigour, clarity and relevance.
3. Decision. The editors weigh the reports and decide: accept, accept with minor revisions, revise and resubmit, or reject. The decision and the reviewers' comments are sent to the corresponding author by email.
4. Revision. Revised manuscripts are returned with a note of how each point was addressed. Substantial revisions may go back to the reviewers.

Reviewers are expected to assess manuscripts objectively and constructively, to keep them confidential, and to declare any conflict of interest. Editorial decisions rest on the quality, originality and relevance of the work; payment of any fee has no bearing on them, and reviewers are never told a manuscript's payment status.

JGST is open access: readers pay nothing, and there is no subscription or paywall. Publication is funded by author charges, levied in two stages.

• The processing fee is not refundable, whatever the outcome. It pays for the assessment itself, which is carried out whether the manuscript is accepted or rejected.
• It does not purchase publication. Paying entitles a manuscript to be considered, not to be accepted.

There are no other charges — no page charges and nothing extra for figures or colour.

Paying in naira

Pay from the Payment page of your author account. The journal's online checkout records the payment against your submission straight away and issues a receipt. Authors in Nigeria should use this route.

Paying in US dollars or CFA francs

Authors outside Nigeria may pay by bank transfer to one of the accounts below. Both are held in the name of the African Regional Institute for Geospatial Information Science and Technology (AFRIGIST).

• US dollars — Zenith Bank PLC. Account number 5074394037, SWIFT code ZEIBNGLA, sort code 057190190.
• CFA francs — Ecobank Benin. Account number 110008337001, SWIFT code ECOCHBJ.

Pay the transfer charges as well as the fee, so that the amount above arrives in full, then email the transfer receipt to chiefeditor@afrigistjournals.com, quoting the manuscript title and the name of the submitting author. The editorial office records the payment against your submission.

These are the only accounts the journal uses. Treat any request to send money elsewhere — to details supplied privately, by an individual or in an email — as fraudulent, and report it to the editorial office.

Submitting to JGST commits you to the following.

• Originality. The manuscript is your own work, is not a duplicate or redundant version of anything already published, and is not under consideration elsewhere. Text taken from another source without quotation and attribution — including from your own earlier papers — is plagiarism and is grounds for rejection.
• Authorship. Everyone listed made a real contribution to the work, and everyone who did is listed. Authors are named at submission; adding or removing one later requires the written agreement of all of them.
• Data and honesty. Data are real and reported accurately. Fabrication, falsification and the misrepresentation of findings are serious misconduct.
• Conflicts of interest. Disclose any funding, employment or relationship that could be seen to influence the work.
• Lawful content. The manuscript contains nothing abusive, defamatory, fraudulent or otherwise unlawful.
• The review process. Any attempt to manipulate peer review — such as suggesting a reviewer with an undisclosed connection to the work — is misconduct.

Third-party material. Acknowledge every dataset, satellite image, map, figure, photograph and piece of software obtained from another source, and obtain permission where it is needed to reproduce it. Securing that permission is the author's responsibility.

Copyright and licensing. Articles are published under the Creative Commons Attribution-NonCommercial 4.0 International licence (CC BY-NC 4.0), which lets anyone read, download, share and adapt the work for non-commercial purposes with attribution. Copyright in the published article is held by AFRIGIST Journals.

Where a concern about research integrity or publication ethics arises, the journal may investigate and take appropriate action, including publishing a correction or retraction. Concerns and allegations may be sent to chiefeditor@afrigistjournals.com.