Focus

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About This Journal

Focus: The Journal of Planning Practice & Education is published by the Department of City & Regional Planning at Cal Poly, San Luis Obispo. Keeping with the theme of balancing current observations with innovative research on practice, the journal provides multiple avenues for publication. While we invite research and case study publications for our peer-reviewed section, we also invite the submission of commentaries and essays, which encourage an exchange and dialogue on the professional practice of city planning and urban design -- in all of its genres and subgenres. Observations from fieldwork, documentation of studio projects, client reports, internships and notes from invited lectures are strongly encouraged. Current and past issues of Focus are available on-line at http://digitalcommons.calpoly.edu/focus/all_issues.html

Submission & Peer Review Process

Articles should be original, technically sound, and clearly written in English. Authors should identify in a submission cover letter how their article fits with the goals of Focus. All papers will be reviewed first by the editor for quality assurance, with papers not well-written or appropriate return as “not accepted.”

Following this, each accepted paper will be assigned to a minimum of 2 reviewers, usually within 7 days of submission, who will assess the paper based on the quality of its contribution. Reviews are requested within 21 days of editor request with a decision issued to the author shortly thereafter. Reviewers will be drawn from the Editorial Board, professionals, and others with specialized knowledge in the area of practicing planning.

Copyright & Author Information

As an online, open-access journal, authors own the copyright to their works, unless they have agreed to transfer copyright to their employer. Upon publication acceptance, authors grant to Focus the right to make available such content, in any format, in perpetuity, using the Creative Commons Attribution Non-Commercial license (CC BY-NC), which gives explicit permission for others to share and adapt your work as long as the use is for non-commercial purposes and the original source and author(s) are cited. Authors may reproduce, in other contexts, content to which they possess the copyright, although in any subsequent publications Focus should be acknowledged as the original publisher. Content published in Focus will not be removed from the website even if later published elsewhere and authors must agree to these terms. Students making submissions to Focus agree to share their work and waive any privacy rights granted by FERPA or any other law, policy or regulation, with respect to this work, for the purpose of publication.

Focus is supported by DigitalCommons@CalPoly at the Robert E. Kennedy Library, which administers our double-blind, peer-review system through the Bepress platform. DigitalCommons@CalPoly is a non-commercial open access repository, meaning content hosted by DigitalCommons@CalPoly may be browsed and downloaded at no cost and with no access restrictions. DigitalCommons@CalPoly has the right to view and display, store and copy (for preservation purposes), and distribute all repository content.

We aim for relevance to and dialogue on the current practice of planning that is timely, original and supports an of knowledge. We are pursuing indexing in the Thomson Reuters Web of Science Index of Scientific Journals and the Directory of Open Access Journals.

Focus ISSN number is 1549-3776.