Before formal submission, potential contributors are invited to either enquire whether or not a particular article would be of interest to the Editorial Board, or to obtain advice about the way in which a manuscript should be prepared for submission.

• Title Operations Coordinator: submissions@koedoe.co.za
• Editor-in-Chief: editor@koedoe.co.za
• Technical assistance: If you require technical assistance in submitting your manuscript to Koedoe, you will find details of how to contact AOSIS OpenJournals support directly by clicking here.

Koedoe is an Open Access, peer reviewed journal publishing research that aims to address scientific- and environmental conservation and its practices within protected areas across Africa’s biological diversity. The journal is edited by Llewellyn Foxcroft with the assistance of an expert Editorial Board. Each article published by Koedoe follows a specific format as detailed in the corresponding instructions for authors.

The instructions for authors include information about the criteria for publication, preparing a manuscript for submission to Koedoe and the online submission process. Other relevant information about the journal's policies and refereeing process can be found under the 'Resources' section.

In order to be accepted for publication in Koedoe, research must satisfy the following criteria:

• The study should present the results of primary scientific research.
• Results reported have not been published elsewhere.
• Experiments, statistics and other analyses are performed to a high technical standard and are described in sufficient detail so that another researcher is able to reproduce the experiments described.
• Conclusions are presented in an appropriate fashion and are supported by the data.
• The article is presented in an intelligible fashion and is written in clear and unambiguous Standard English.
• The research meets all applicable standards for the ethics of experimentation and research integrity.
• The article adheres to appropriate reporting guidelines and community standards for data availability.

Koedoe publishes the following types of articles (click on the link to learn more about the format and structure requirements):

• Original research articles: Reports on complete, comprehensive pieces of original research in any field of protected area research, conservation ecology, and whose conclusions represent a substantial advance in understanding of an important discovery and/or problem and have immediate, far-reaching implications. (maximum 7000 words; 60 references).
• Review articles: May be submitted, or solicited by the editor. Reviews provide a synthesis of an extensive field of literature, informing a broad readership about fields in which there have been recent advances of fundamental importance, and highlight unresolved questions and future directions. Standard headings are not always appropriate, but the review should have clear sub-headings to provide order to the manuscript. (maximum 7000 words; 80 references, but try to focus on the most pertinent references).
• Essays: Short opinion piece or personal perspectives (not research papers) on any fundamental conservation concept and/or development that highlights recent exciting research or policy developments. As these are meant to express a personal viewpoint, essays will generally have no more than two authors, or alternatively, multiple authors from a specific research lab or consortium (between 1000 – 2000 words; 20 references). Standard headings are not always appropriate, but the essay should have clear sub-headings to provide order to the manuscript.
• Policy and management: These papers present advances in evidence based policy and management approaches, in order use scientific advances to assist with context-specific real world management challenges. They aim to capture experiences from different regions and make these available in order to promote collaborative development of effective strategies for managing protected areas and natural resources. Standard headings are not always appropriate, but the paper should have clear sub-headings to provide order to the manuscript. (maximum 2000 words; 20 references).
• Short communications: A Short Communication is a concise, but complete, description of a limited investigation, which will not be included in a later paper. Short Communications should be as completely documented, both by reference to the literature and description of the experimental procedures employed, as an original research paper (maximum 3000 words, 25 references).
• Scientific letters: Discussions on material, whereby readers raise their opinion on a particular aspect of conservation or their reaction to a previously published paper in Koedoe. This section encourages debate amongst authors and readers on topical issues of national and global importance to the field of conservation, ecology and protected area management. Letters might be solicited by the editor to provide a critique on a topical or potentially controversial issue. Letters will be published at the editors’ discretion. In the case of critical letters, the original author will be given an opportunity to provide a short rebuttal which will be published along with the critical letter (maximum 2000 words).
• Commentary: Distinguished scientists will be invited by the editor to write a short article on any topic of their choice. These commentaries aim to provide interesting and insightful information for a wide range of readers (< 2000 words).
• Book review: Normally requested by the editor or book-review editor on any books relevant to all aspects of conservation. Please contact the editor if you would like to suggest a review or book for consideration. (maximum 8000 words).
• Checklists: Checklists aim to provide a platform for publication of long species lists and other similar data which provide particularly important baseline information for research and monitoring. Checklists should be as completely documented as a short communication would be. This includes reference to relevant literature and a description of the data collection and other procedures employed, (maximum 3000 words, maximum 25 references).

Submission languages: English, Afrikaans.

Koedoe uses the Harvard referencing system (click on the link below to view the Harvard referencing guide):

• Harvard  style guide

Authors and referees are asked to declare any competing interests. Copyright rests with authors. For more information on the copyright of articles, see our publisher's copyright and license policy under the 'Editorial details' and 'Resources' sections.

You will need an author account with Koedoe in order to submit a manuscript.

Here follows detailed instructions on how to submit an article online:

1. After you have logged in and clicked on 'Author', click on the link under 'start a new submission' to go to step 1 of the five-step submission process.
2. Enter data and answer questions as prompted.
3. Click on the Next button on each screen to save your work and advance to the next screen. 
4. You are required to upload your files in two separate steps.  Step 2: Upload single submission file - Click on the Browse button and locate the file on your computer. When you have selected the file you wish to upload, click the Upload button. Note: You have a limit of 15MB for a single file you upload. Review your submission (in a Word .doc)  before sending it to the Editors. Step 4: Upload cover page and other multiple supplementary file(s).
   • Click on the Browse button and locate the file on your computer.
   • Select the designation of your supplementary files (.eps, .xls).
   • When you have selected the file you wish to upload, click the Upload button. Note: You have a limit of 15MB  for a single file you upload.
   • Repeat steps 1-3 until all supplementary files have been uploaded. Note: You can only upload 1 supplementary file at a time.
5. Review your submission online in Step 5 before sending it to the Editors.
6. Click the Finish Submit button when you are done reviewing.  

Support videos:

• Click here to view a video on how to submit an article online.
• Click here to view a video on how to proofread your article.

The submission process can be interrupted at any time; when users return to the site they can continue where they left off. After completing the submission, you will receive a submission confirmation via email. You can also login to Koedoe at any time to check the status of your manuscript.