COMPUTER-AIDED CIVIL AND INFRASTRUCTURE ENGINEERING

Received the first round of review comments after more than a month, with 10 reviewers and over 170 comments. The revision took about a month, and the overall review comments were very critical, with 4 major revisions, 3 requests for resubmission, and 3 declines. At that time, I didn't have much hope (seeing 170 review comments from 10 reviewers was overwhelming). I reluctantly made the revisions and returned it. After about another month, I received the second round of review comments. Among them, 1 agreed, 3 required minor revisions, 2 required major revisions, 1 requested resubmission, and 3 declined. The editor replied that it still didn't meet the requirements, but gave us another chance to revise. This time, there were about 70 review comments. After about a month of revisions, I returned it. This time, the wait was a bit longer, about three months. Then I received the third round of comments. Out of the previous 10 reviewers, 5 agreed, 1 required minor revisions, 1 required major revisions, and 3 declined. These three reviewers consistently declined the manuscript. After about a month of revisions, I returned it to the editor. After a while, the editor replied and decided not to proceed with a fourth round of review, and informed us of acceptance. Overall, the whole process was indeed arduous. Receiving so many review comments for the first time, there were various problems of all kinds, many of which were on-point and provided strong guidance for our topic. We almost gave up during the revision process, and I hope those who have had similar experiences can persevere. I also hope these experiences can be helpful to you.

Apart from the poor submission experience, everything else is good. The chief editor, Prof. Adeli, is easy to communicate with and the review process is fast.

Since it is a submission via email, many details need to be taken into account. For example, the sender's name in the email cannot be in Chinese, otherwise the chief editor will not receive it (I only found out about this when I proactively asked the chief editor after a month of no response). In addition to the submission files required by the journal's official website, a plagiarism report is also required (with a plagiarism rate not exceeding 1%).

April 2nd: Finally submitted all the materials.
May 5th: Received an email notification that the manuscript is under review.
June 2nd: Major revision. Nine reviewers provided nearly 100 comments. Given three weeks to revise, it was overwhelming...
June 21st: Unable to finish the revision, emailed the chief editor to request an additional three weeks, and the request was accepted the next day without hesitation.
July 14th: Submitted the revised manuscript. Due to the large size of the PDF file, the reviewer's email couldn't receive it (the cursed email submission). Had multiple exchanges with the chief editor to modify the PDF file size.
August 9th: Minor revision, can be accepted after submission.
August 25th: Submitted the revised manuscript.
August 30th: Officially accepted and handed over to the publisher for publication.