About the Journal

Focus and Scope

The aim is to report on academic research and innovative industrial development work concerning the application of information technology throughout the life-cycle of the design, construction and occupancy of buildings and related facilities. The focus is on presenting research results dealing with or having relevance across disciplines and/or life-cycle stages. There are other, existing journals addressing specialised analysis, synthesis or optimisation methods particular to design or construction tasks within the individual subdisciples of construction.

In the following list some major topics which the journal aims to cover are mentioned:

  • IT strategies within organisations and groups, ranging from the level of the individual firm to a consortium of firms to national construction industries.
  • Construction process and enterprise modelling
  • Reengineering of the construction process using IT as an enabling technology
  • Methods of concurrent engineering
  • IT-supported communication across or within disciplines and life cycle stages (hypermedia, Internet, videoconferencing etc.)
  • Databases, translation methodologies, remote communication between programs, shared object libraries and other computing techniques for data exchange and sharing
  • Technologies and standards for the digital representation of buildings (building information models, BIM)
  • Building Information Modelling.
  • Standards for structuring and exchanging data in the construction process (building classification systems, EDI messages, document management, representation of building regulations, component libraries)
  • The use of IT-based techniques for problem solving in construction (expert systems and AI, case-based reasoning, simulation, neural networks, the genetic algoritm et.c.).
  • Computerization of building standards, codes and regulations.
  • Distance learning of IT in civil engineering using IT itself.

Peer Review Process

Each paper will be reviewed by 2-4 reviewers. They will be looking for the following:

  • a clear hypothesis or research question;
  • a sound research methodology;
  • some generic, broadly informative results;
  • thorough review of work on which the paper is building;
  • clearly stated original contribution beyond what was known before;
  • substantiated and interesting conclusions.

Open Access Policy

This journal provides immediate open access to its content on the principle that making research freely available to the public supports a greater global exchange of knowledge.

About ITcon

The Journal of Information Technology in Construction (ITcon) is a peer-reviewed scholarly journal on the use of IT in architecture, civil engineering and facility management. ITcon articles are submitted and published electronically only. The Journal is committed to minimizing publication delays, and to promoting maximum flexibility in the ways that readers use the journal for teaching, research, and scholarship while maintaining strict peer-review standards. ITcon is an Open Access journal and its articles can freely and with no charge be read by anybody who has an Internet connection. The copyright of the articles remains with the authors, from the start of 2009 using the Creative Commons standard licence.

Journal History

ITcon has its origins in the working commission W78 (Information Technology for Construction) of the International Council for Research and Innovation in Building and Construction (CIB), which has also been the official publisher of the journal since 2005. In 2005 the IT-AEC journal merged with ITcon, further strengthening the journal's base of editors and reviewers. Professor Bo-Christer Björk was editor-in-chief from the launch of the journal until the end of 2010. Professor Žiga Turk was editor-in-chief from the end of 2010 to 2012. The current editor-in-chief is Professor Robert Amor.

From its founding in 1995 until the end of 2006 the journal used the title Electronic Journal of Information Technology in Construction, but the term electronic was dropped as superfluous since the majority of scientific journals are nowadays available also as electronic versions. ITcon is indexed in DOAJ, SCOPUS, ICONDA and the ITC Digital Library, and its articles are highly visible in web search engines such as Google and Google Scholar. The journal is also a member of the Open Access Scholarly Publishers Association (OASPA).