Sahel International Journal of Computing and Information and Communication Technology

The Sahel International Journal of Computing and Information and Communication Technology (SIJCICT) is an international, peer-reviewed, open-access journal publishing rigorous research across computing, information systems and information and communication technology. The journal provides a platform for computer scientists, engineers, information-systems scholars, data scientists, technology professionals, policymakers and innovators to advance dependable, secure, inclusive and socially beneficial digital technologies.

SIJCICT welcomes theoretically informed, technically sound and ethically conducted research from all regions of the world. It has a particular interest in Africa and the Sahel, including scholarship that places experiences from these regions in comparative and global perspective. The journal does not privilege any country, institution, vendor, platform, programming language, technical architecture or methodological tradition.

About the Journal

SIJCICT is an interdisciplinary scholarly journal established to advance research and informed debate on computation, software, data, information systems, communication networks and emerging digital technologies. It publishes work that develops algorithms and theory, designs and evaluates systems, produces credible empirical evidence, introduces datasets and methods, assesses technology in real-world settings and translates research into meaningful lessons for industry, policy and society.

The journal connects foundational computing with applied ICT. SIJCICT welcomes contributions from computer science, software engineering, artificial intelligence, data science, cybersecurity, information systems, telecommunications, computer engineering, human-computer interaction, educational technology, digital development and related fields. It values mathematical analysis, simulation, experimentation, benchmarking, design science, field evaluation, surveys, qualitative inquiry and mixed methods when appropriately designed, transparently reported and rigorously applied.

Although SIJCICT has a distinctive commitment to research concerning Africa and the Sahel, its remit is global. The journal encourages North-South, South-South and cross-regional scholarship and seeks to counter the marginalisation of knowledge produced in developing, low-resource and conflict-affected settings. Local relevance alone is not sufficient for publication. Every article must articulate a clear problem, engage the relevant literature, use a defensible method, evaluate claims against meaningful evidence and make a contribution that extends beyond the immediate implementation.

Ownership, Management and Editorial Independence

SIJCICT is owned and published by Sahel Academic Publishing Ltd. The publisher provides administrative, production and technical support but does not determine the conclusions of articles or interfere with individual editorial decisions. The Editor-in-Chief has final responsibility for the journal’s scholarly content and acts through an Editorial Board whose members are selected for relevant expertise, integrity and diversity. Commercial considerations, advertising, sponsorship, vendor relationships and institutional interests shall not influence editorial decisions.

Aim and Editorial Mission

SIJCICT aims to be a trusted international forum for original research and critical scholarship that advances computing, information systems and ICT. Its editorial mission is to publish work that is technically sound, methodologically credible, ethically responsible, practically relevant and sufficiently transparent to permit expert scrutiny and meaningful reuse.

Objectives

SIJCICT seeks to:

1. publish original theoretical, computational, experimental, empirical and methodological contributions in computing and ICT;
2. advance the design, analysis, implementation and evaluation of algorithms, software, hardware, data systems and communication technologies;
3. connect technical innovation with consequential questions of security, reliability, accessibility, development, sustainability and social impact;
4. encourage interdisciplinary, comparative and context-sensitive research;
5. strengthen the international visibility of high-quality scholarship from Africa, the Sahel and other underrepresented regions;
6. facilitate responsible knowledge exchange among researchers, technology professionals, educators, policymakers and industry;
7. advance open, reproducible and ethically sound computational research; and
8. uphold editorial independence, procedural fairness and the integrity of the scholarly record.

Scope

SIJCICT considers manuscripts that make a substantive contribution within one or more of the following areas:

Theoretical Computer Science and Algorithms

Algorithms and complexity; computability; automata and formal languages; graph theory; optimisation; logic and formal methods; cryptographic foundations; computational geometry; distributed algorithms; numerical methods; quantum computing; and mathematically grounded advances in computation.

Artificial Intelligence, Machine Learning and Data Science

Machine learning; deep learning; natural-language processing; computer vision; speech and audio processing; knowledge representation; reasoning; recommender systems; generative AI; explainable and trustworthy AI; reinforcement learning; data mining; big-data analytics; causal inference; and responsible AI evaluation.

Software Engineering and Programming Languages

Requirements; architecture; software design and testing; verification and validation; maintenance and evolution; DevOps; open-source software; programming languages and compilers; software quality, reliability and security; empirical software engineering; mobile and web development; and low-code or no-code systems.

Information Systems and Digital Transformation

Systems analysis and design; enterprise systems; databases; decision-support systems; digital platforms; e-government; e-commerce; health information systems; financial technologies; organisational adoption; IT governance; digital entrepreneurship; business-process innovation; technology policy; and socioeconomic impacts of digital transformation.

Networks, Telecommunications and Distributed Systems

Computer networks; wireless and mobile communication; 5G and emerging networks; network protocols; routing; quality of service; software-defined networking; edge and fog computing; cloud systems; distributed and parallel computing; satellite communication; spectrum management; and resilient connectivity.

Cybersecurity, Privacy and Digital Forensics

System, network, application and cloud security; cryptography; identity and access management; malware and intrusion detection; cyber-threat intelligence; privacy engineering; usable security; digital forensics; cybercrime; critical-infrastructure protection; security governance; vulnerability analysis; and responsible disclosure.

Internet of Things, Embedded Systems and Robotics

Internet of Things; sensor networks; embedded and real-time systems; cyber-physical systems; robotics; autonomous systems; smart cities; intelligent transportation; industrial automation; precision agriculture; assistive devices; energy-efficient computing; and hardware-software co-design.

Human-Computer Interaction and Multimedia

User experience; interaction design; usability; accessibility; affective computing; collaborative systems; social computing; games; virtual, augmented and mixed reality; multimedia systems; information visualisation; human-AI interaction; inclusive design; and technology use across cultures and languages.

ICT for Development, Education and Public Services

Digital inclusion; community networks; educational technology; mobile services; digital health; digital finance; agricultural information services; humanitarian technology; civic technology; digital literacy; technology adoption in low-resource settings; local-language technologies; gender and technology; and evaluation of ICT-enabled development interventions.

Data Engineering, Cloud and Emerging Technologies

Database systems; data engineering and governance; cloud-native architectures; high-performance computing; blockchain and distributed ledgers; digital twins; green computing; privacy-preserving computation; federated learning; neuromorphic and quantum technologies; interoperability; standards; and scalable research infrastructure.

Submissions that merely describe an application, reproduce a familiar model on a new dataset without a substantive contribution, lack meaningful baselines or evaluation, use methods that do not support their claims, or fall outside the journal’s remit may be declined without external review.

Article Types

*Word limits normally include notes but exclude the abstract, references, tables, figures, algorithms, code listings and online supplementary material. Editors may approve exceptions where justified.

Why Publish with SIJCICT?

• International and interdisciplinary readership.
• Double-anonymised peer review by subject specialists.
• Open access to the version of record immediately upon publication.
• Transparent editorial, ethics and post-publication policies.
• Particular visibility for robust scholarship from Africa and other underrepresented research settings.
• Persistent article identification and long-term digital preservation.

Journal at a Glance

Author Guidelines

General Requirements

Submissions must be original, within scope, written in clear English and not under consideration by another journal. Manuscripts should present a defined problem, an explicit technical or scholarly contribution, an appropriate design and evaluation, transparent analysis and conclusions proportionate to the evidence. Authors are responsible for licences and permission to reproduce code, datasets, interfaces, figures, screenshots, standards or other third-party material.

Submission Files

Authors should provide:

• a title page containing the article title, author names, affiliations, ORCID iDs where available, corresponding-author details, acknowledgements, funding, competing interests and author-contribution statement;
• an anonymised manuscript without identifying information;
• editable tables and publication-quality figure files;
• source code, pseudocode, models, configuration files, datasets, instruments, protocols or technical appendices where relevant;
• ethics approval, consent, data-protection and responsible-disclosure information where applicable; and
• a cover letter explaining the manuscript’s fit and contribution and confirming compliance with journal policies.

Manuscript Structure

Original Research Articles should normally include:

1. concise and informative title;
2. structured abstract of 200-300 words covering background or purpose, methods, results and conclusion;
3. four to seven keywords;
4. introduction establishing the problem, gap, contribution and research objective;
5. related work and the theoretical, technical or conceptual foundation;
6. methodology or system design, including data, architecture, algorithms, implementation, experimental setup, baselines, metrics, hardware and software environment and ethical safeguards;
7. results, including error analysis, uncertainty, sensitivity, ablation, scalability, security or robustness evaluation where appropriate;
8. discussion comparing findings with prior work and explaining practical significance, trade-offs, limitations, threats to validity and generalisability;
9. conclusion stating the contribution, implications and priorities for future research;
10. required declarations; and
11. references and any supplementary code, data, models, protocols or documentation.

Alternative structures are acceptable for mathematical, theoretical, design-science, qualitative, legal and standards-oriented research when they fit disciplinary conventions and support a clear contribution.

Style and Technical Presentation

• Use British English consistently, except in quotations, official titles and code identifiers.
• Prepare text in an editable Word-compatible format, with continuous page and line numbering.
• Define abbreviations, variables and symbols at first use and maintain consistent notation.
• Number equations, algorithms, tables and figures in the order cited; define all notation and provide informative captions.
• Report dataset versions, collection dates, licences, splits, exclusions, preprocessing and known limitations.
• Identify software, libraries, models, APIs, hardware, operating systems and versions needed to understand or reproduce the work.
• For machine-learning studies, state hyperparameters, random seeds, training procedure, validation strategy, stopping criteria and computational resources.
• Report appropriate baselines, uncertainty, effect sizes, confidence intervals and exact probability values where relevant.
• Distinguish training, validation and test data and guard against data leakage, benchmark contamination and unacknowledged reuse.
• Use architecture diagrams, pseudocode and examples where they materially improve reproducibility; ensure figures remain legible and accessible.
• Avoid unsupported claims of novelty, state-of-the-art performance, intelligence, fairness, security, scalability or real-world readiness.
• Use inclusive, respectful and non-stigmatising language.

Referencing

SIJCICT uses APA Style, 7th edition, with conventional adaptations for technical standards, software, datasets and conference proceedings. Authors must ensure that every in-text citation appears in the reference list and every listed reference is cited. Include DOIs or other persistent identifiers as links where available. Software, datasets, models and standards should be cited by creator, title, version, year and repository or publisher. References must be accurate and should prioritise original and archival sources. Fabricated, irrelevant or citation-manipulated references constitute misconduct.

Required Declarations for Published Articles

Every article should carry the following headings, using “Not applicable” or “None declared” where appropriate:

• Ethics approval and consent to participate
• Consent for publication
• Competing interests
• Funding
• Author contributions
• Acknowledgements
• Data availability
• Materials and code availability
• Preregistration or protocol registration
• Use of artificial intelligence tools

Submission Checklist

Before submitting, the corresponding author should confirm that:

1. the manuscript is original, within scope and not under consideration elsewhere;
2. all authors qualify for authorship, approved the manuscript and agreed to submission;
3. the review manuscript is anonymised and the title page is separate;
4. the abstract, keywords, main text, references, tables, figures and declarations are complete;
5. methods, ethics, consent and reporting-guideline requirements have been addressed;
6. data, code and materials are deposited or restrictions are explained in a Data Availability Statement;
7. funding, competing interests, related works, preprints and AI use are disclosed;
8. every citation and reference has been checked for accuracy and relevance;
9. permission has been obtained for third-party copyrighted material; and
10. all files are readable, editable where required and free of identifying metadata in the anonymised version.