Announcements

UN's 17 Sustainable Development Goals (SDGs) are the blueprint to achieve a better and more sustainable future for all. In 2020 the SDG Publishers Compact was launched, aimed to inspire publishers and accelerate progress to achieve the 17 goals by 2030. Members of the programme are committed to support the publication of materials that will promote and inspire actions towards SDGs.

MDPI is an eager advocate of SDGs and has already been supporting the programme by creating Special Issues and publishing a series of books on SDGs prior to joining the Compact in 2021. MDPI's Sustainability Foundation initiated the World Sustainability Awards in 2016. We fully support UN's goals to promote sustainable actions that make the world a better place for all and, as part of its commitment, we will focus our actions on SDG10: Reduced Inequalities whilst promoting all 17 SDGs. For more details, please visit the programme’s website: https://www.un.org/sustainabledevelopment/sdg-publishers-compact/.

Joining this initiative was a unanimous decision. MDPI has in its core values the dissemination of science for all, breaking the wall between research access and under-represented members of the scientific community and the general population. To support this initiative further and continue to support under-represented scientists, MDPI will take a series of actions that will be announced once ready.

The first action MDPI takes is to nominate Dr. Liliane Auwerter as the coordinator of the programme. Dr. Auwerter studied Environmental Process Technology (UTFPR, Brazil), obtained her MSc degree in Water and Environmental Engineering (University of Surrey, UK) and in 2020 completed her PhD in self-healing low-friction materials for water transport (Imperial College London, UK), always focusing on diverse scientific projects that would potentially bring sustainability to industrial processes. As a student in Brazil, she engaged in volunteering activities focused on environmental education and took part in the Millennial Development Goals meetings held at the university.

For more information, please contact:
Dr. Liliane Auwerter
Scientific Officer
liliane.auwerter@mdpi.com

For the first time, we are proud to have six new Associate Editors join the IJGI editorial board, as of late July:

Prof. Dr. Maria Antonia Brovelli is a professor of GIS at the Politecnico di Milano (PoliMI) and a member of the School of Doctoral Studies in Data Science at “Roma La Sapienza”. She is the chair of ISPRS WG IV/4 “Collaborative Crowdsourced Cloud Mapping (C3M)”; a member of ESA ACEO (Advisory Committee of Earth Observation); co-chair of the United Nations Open GIS Initiative; and chair of the UN-GGIM (Global Geospatial Information Management) Academic Network. Her research is in the field of geospatial webs, geodata science, citizen science, open science, open data, open geospatial software and geospatial artificial intelligence.

Dr. Wei Huang is a professor at Tongji University in Shanghai, China, and adjunct professor at Ryerson University, Toronto, Canada. His research interests lie in volunteer geographic information, urban computing, transportation geography and computational social science, focusing on using big data and artificial intelligence to explore the complex spatio-temporal behavior patterns of human beings. In addition, his research aims to study the generation mechanism and spatio-temporal propagation law of urban and social events, so as to better understand the interaction mechanism between human activities and urban systems, with applications in social perception, urban sustainable development, policy making, etc.

Dr. Mingshu Wang is a senior lecturer (associate professor) and doctoral supervisor in geospatial data science at the School of Geographical and Earth Sciences, University of Glasgow, UK. His research focuses on geographic data science and urban science. He received his bachelor's degree from Nanjing University and his master's degree and doctor's degree from the University of Georgia. He was a permanent assistant professor in the School of Geographic Information Science and Earth Observation (ITC) at the University of Twente in the Netherlands. He has received research grants from the World Bank, Dutch Research Council (NWO), Chinese Academy of Sciences and Microsoft Azure Research Award. He is currently secretary of the International Society of Remote Sensing and Photogrammetry (ISPRS) IV/6 Working Group, editor of Asian Geographer, associate editor of Regional Studies, Regional Science and editorial board member and guest editor of several international journals. His research interests include GIScience, geodata science, urban informatics and city and regional development.

Prof. Dr. Huayi Wu is a professor at Wuhan University, doctoral supervisor and associate director of The State Key Laboratory of Surveying, Mapping and Remote Sensing Information Engineering, and has made outstanding contributions to the National Talent Project. He has presided over and participated in more than 30 projects, and has won one National Science and Technology Progress Award (Innovation Team) and three other prizes. He is the scientific network consultant of the United Nations Expert Committee on Geographic Information Management and the chair of the Working Committee of GIS Theory and Method of China Geographic Information Industry Association. His research interests cover spatial analysis, spatial statistics, web-based GIS, geospatial information sharing, geoprocessing and high-performance computation.

Dr. Godwin Yeboah is a senior research fellow at the Institute for Global Sustainable Development based at the University of Warwick. He is a fellow of the Royal Geographical Society (with the Institute of British Geographers), British Council UK Panel Member on Social Sciences (2015-2020) and a member of the State of the Map (SoTM) 2019–2020 Academic Track Leading Scientific Committee. His research interests include GIScience, citizen science, spatial analysis, geomatics, open-source, geocomputation, human–environment interactions, urban informatics and sustainable development.

Prof. Dr. Sisi Zlatanova is a professor at the School of Built Environment, Faculty of Arts, Design and Architecture, University of New South Wales. She is the president of ISPRS TC IV on spatial information science, the treasurer of UDMS and a co-chair of OGC SWG IndoorGML. Prof. Dr. Zlatanova has been active in attending and organizing several international conferences such as Gi4DM, UDMS, 3D GeoInfo, Indoor3D, etc. Her research interests include geospatial information systems, data structures, database management, building information modeling, digital twin, photogrammetry and remote sensing, surveying, conceptual modeling and mobile technologies.

We warmly welcome Prof. Dr. Maria Antonia Brovelli, Dr. Wei Huang, Dr. Mingshu Wang, Prof. Dr. Huayi Wu, Dr. Godwin Yeboah and Prof. Dr. Sisi Zlatanova as the first Associate Editors of IJGI, and look forward to their contribution to the journal’s continued success.

This serves to announce to our valued authors based in Japan that value-added tax, or consumption tax will now be imposed on article processing fees and other service fees for all papers submitted, or resubmitted (assigned new paper IDs), effective from 15 August 2021. The change is in accordance with the Japanese "Act for Partial Revision of the Income Tax Act and Other Acts" (Act No. 9 of 2015), which includes a revision of consumption taxation on cross-border supplies of services such as digital content distribution.

For additional information from the National Tax Agency please see here ("Cross-border supplies of electronic services").

Contact: Setsuko Nishihara, MDPI Tokyo

The 2020 citation metrics have been officially released in the Journal Citation Reports (JCR)!

We are pleased to announce that 85 MDPI journals are included, of which:

• 10 journals received their first impact factor
• 96% of journals increased their impact factor from 2019
• 32 journals (38%) ranked among the top 25% of journals, in at least one category

* Journals given their first Impact Factor in 2021

Source: 2020 Journal Impact Factors, Journal Citation Reports ® (Clarivate, 2021)

ISPRS recently made an adjustment to the scope of IJGI. The new scope has officially now been announced on the IJGI webpage: https://www.mdpi.com/journal/ijgi/about

The scope of the ISPRS International Journal of Geo-Information is geoinformation (science) and its related applications. The major areas that cover the scope of the journal are:

• Spatial data modeling (3D and multi-dimensional modeling, data structures and algorithms, uncertainty modeling, ontologies, etc.);
• Spatial data management (spatial databases, cloud data management, blockchain, etc.);
• Spatial analysis and decision making (geocomputation, geosimulation, spatial statistics, etc.);
• Geospatial artificial intelligence (machine learning, deep learning, big data, data mining, cognition, etc.);
• Cartography (geovisualization, visual analytics, augmented and virtual reality, digital globes, etc.);
• Spatial data infrastructures (data integration, standards, metadata, policies, etc.);
• Geospatial web (semantic web, Internet of Things, sensor networks, web services, cloud computing, interoperability, etc.);
• Citizen science, crowd sourcing and volunteered geographic information (open data, social media, etc.);
• Location-based services and trajectory analysis (mobility, real-time GIS, indoor/outdoor modeling and mapping, etc.);
• Urban informatics, smart cities and communities (urban digital twins, BIM/CIM/AEC, etc.);
• Advanced geospatial applications (climate change, ecology, SDGs, disaster management, One Health, mobility, etc.).

Submissions must fall under one, or several, of the mentioned areas. Papers that are primarily devoted to remote sensing, photogrammetry, GNSS, geodesy, or geosciences/earth sciences (such as geology, lithology, geomorphology, hydrology, climatology, meteorology, etc.), are out of the scope of this journal. Papers on applications in those disciplines might be acceptable but only when they have a strong relation with, and components in, geoinformation science.

MDPI will be attending IGARSS 2021, to be held in virtual form from 12th to 16th of July 2021.

IGARSS 2021, which will take place from 12 to 16 July 2021, is a joint effort of the Low Countries, the Netherlands and Belgium, and they have chosen Crossing Borders as the overall theme of the conference:

• Between countries and research institutes;
• Between types of platforms (from satellites to drones);
• Between data sources;
• Between disciplines.

The following MDPI journals will be represented:

• Remote Sensing
• Atmosphere
• Water
• Sustainability
• Data
• Soil Systems
• IJGI
• Drones

If you are attending this conference, please feel free to start an online conversation with us. Our delegates look forward to meeting you in person and answering any questions you may have. For more information about the conference and our virtual booth, please visit: https://igarss2021.com/default.asp.

MDPI Books recently released Book Builder, a new online tool to conveniently arrange, design and produce an eBook from any content published in MDPI journals. Book Builder offers two functions: on the one hand (1) Selections, available to every registered user of MDPI; on the other hand (2) Special Issue Reprints, which can be used exclusively by Guest Editors of Special Issues.

Selections

In just a matter of a few clicks, all users are now able to assemble books from MDPI articles and receive instantaneous feedback in the form of a fully produced and compiled book (PDF), which can be downloaded or ordered as print copy. Selections can include any paper published with MDPI, picking and combining content from different journals and special issues.

This way, the user may for example choose to compile an ebook focusing around a particular topic, or assemble articles from a group of others.

We invite you to make yourself familiar with the new tool! The Book Builder can be found here: https://www.mdpi.com/books/book_builder.

Special Issue Reprints

The Book Builder allows Guest Editors of MDPI journals to create a reprint from a successfully completed Special Issue or Topical Collection in book format. If you are a Guest Editor for an MDPI journal, you can use the new tool  to create an PDF document which includes all articles published in the Special Issue as well as a book cover and table of contents.

For Special Issues containing a minimum of 5 articles, the Guest Editor can request its publication on the MDPI Book platform. Published reprints are assigned an ISBN and DOI.

In addition to the PDF copy of the Reprint Book, as a token of our gratitude, MDPI offers every Guest Editor one (1) complimentary print copy (via print-on-demand). All contributors benefit from a discount on orders of any additional print copies, to share with colleagues or libraries or others.

Why choose MDPI Books?

In line with our organization's values, MDPI Books publishes all content in open access, promoting the exchange of ideas and knowledge in a globalized world. MDPI Books encompasses all the benefits of open access—high availability and visibility, as well as wide and rapid dissemination. MDPI Books are distributed under the terms and conditions of the Creative Commons Attribution License, meaning as an author you retain the copyright for your work. In addition, with MDPI Books you can complement the digital version of your work with a high-quality printed counterpart.

If you are interested in editing a book volume or series, or have a monograph manuscript to be considered for publication, please submit your proposal online and look at our Information for Authors.

Contact: Laura Wagner, MDPI Books Manager (email)

In June of this year, MDPI will celebrate the 25th anniversary of its foundation. To mark this significant milestone, we have created a 25th Anniversary page on our website that evokes the development of our company over the past quarter-century.

MDPI has been a pioneer of Open Access publishing ever since the concept was first created.

In a wide-ranging interview, our CEO Delia Mihaila reflects on the company’s 25th anniversary and its contribution to the world of scientific publishing.

Delia considers how MDPI has evolved since starting life in 1996 as a visionary ‘project’ run out of an apartment in Basel, Switzerland, by Dr. Shu-Kun Lin. A chemist who was passionate about the long-term preservation of rare chemical sample, Dr. Lin was determined to help scholars publish their findings as quickly as possible and make their research results available to as wide a readership as possible worldwide. That determination remains unchanged 25 years later.

Today, MDPI is an international organization with over 4,000 employees based on three continents and in ten countries, and ranks among the world's top four academic publishers.

MDPI's mission is to accelerate access to new scientific research, delivering insight faster for researchers worldwide. Read more here about the company's remarkable success story and what the Open Access publishing model can offer the global scientific community.

Ten years after the appearance of its first volume, the ISPRS International Journal of Geo-Information, the open access journal on geospatial sciences of the International Society for Photogrammetry and Remote Sensing (ISPRS) published by MDPI introduces a new publishing process and is seeking a total of 11 Associate Editors. Under the guidance of the Editor-in-Chief, Wolfgang Kainz from the University of Vienna, each Associate Editor will be responsible for one of the following areas:

1. Spatial data modeling (3D and multi-dimensional modeling, data structures and algorithms, uncertainty modeling, ontologies…)
2. Spatial data management (spatial databases, cloud data management, blockchain…)
3. Spatial analysis and decision making (geocomputation, geosimulation, spatial statistics…)
4. Geospatial Artificial intelligence (machine learning, deep learning, big data, data mining, cognition…)
5. Cartography (geovisualization, visual analytics, augmented and virtual reality, digital globes…)
6. Spatial data infrastructures (data integration, standards, metadata, policies…)
7. Geospatial Web (semantic web, Internet of Things, sensor networks, web services, cloud computing, interoperability…)
8. Citizen science, crowd sourcing and volunteered geographic information (open data, social media…)
9. Location based services and trajectory analysis (mobility, real-time GIS, indoor/outdoor modeling and mapping…)
10. Urban informatics, smart cities and communities (urban digital twins, BIM/CIM/AEC…)
11. Advanced geospatial applications (climate change, ecology, SDGs, disaster management, One Health, mobility…)

Published by MDPI, the aim of the journal is to be a channel of communication for scientists and professionals in all countries working in the science and technology of geographic information. A list of topic areas can be found at https://www.mdpi.com/journal/ijgi/about. It is one of the top ranked geo-information journals, with an impact factor of 2.239 and a 5-year impact factor of 2.402.

Duties:

• Manage the editorial process for papers submitted to the journal in the respective areas under the leadership of the Editor-in-Chief.
• Ensure high-quality scientific content for the journal, taking into account the aims and scope and the MDPI editorial policies.
• Work closely with the Guest Editors of Special Issues in the respective areas, who will report to the successful candidate.
• Work closely with the Editor-in-Chief and the Publisher on matters of the journal’s strategic directions and manuscript decisions (general philosophy, editorial speed, ethics, and difficult cases).

Experience and required qualities:

• The successful candidates should have a demonstrated record of accomplishment of publishing high-quality papers in peer-reviewed journals.
• The successful candidates should have some editorial experience.
• This position demands an amount of time, so the successful candidates should not only possess strong time management skills, but should also have the capacity to devote the necessary time to the job.
• Strong written English communication skills.

Candidates with demonstrated commitment to the ISPRS International Journal of Geo-Information (as an author, reviewer, Guest Editor, or Editorial Board Member) are highly encouraged to apply. Interested individuals should submit a cover letter including a statement of motivation and previous experience, their vision for the journal, together with a CV to Lena Halounová, ISPRS Secretary General, by April 30, 2021 (isprs-sg@isprs.org).

At MDPI, we strive to make your online publication process seamless and efficient. To achieve this, our team is continuously developing tools and features to make the user experience useful and convenient.

As the number of academic papers continues to grow, so does the need to analyze and work with them on a large scale. This prompted us to design a new feature aimed at helping researchers find journals that are relevant to their publication by matching their abstract topic. In this regard, we designed a similarity model that automatically identifies the most suitable academic journals for your paper.

We are pleased to introduce Journal Selector, a new feature that measures similarity in academic contexts. By simply entering the title and/or abstract into our Journal Selector, the author will see a list of the most related scientific journals published by MDPI. This method helps authors select the correct journals for their papers, highlighting the time of publication and citability.

The methodology is known as representation learning, where words are represented as vectors in hyperspace. Representation helps us differentiate between different concepts within articles, and in turn, helps us identify similarities between them.

We used an advanced machine learning model to better capture the semantic meanings of words. This helps the algorithm make better predictions by leveraging scientific text representation. In turn, this ensures high precision, helping authors decide which journal they should submit their paper to.

The goal is to support authors to publish their work in the most suitable journal for their research, as fast as possible, accelerating their career progress.

Contact: Andrea Perlato, Head of Data Analytics, MDPI (email)