About this Journal

African Journal of Wood Science and Forestry ISSN 2375-0979 is a cross-disciplinary, scholarly open access peer-reviewed journal that publishes reviews, regular research papers and short communications in all areas of the subjects. AJWSF provides a means for the publication of the results of practice and research in forestry in its widest sense, including the management of forests, the production and harvesting of forest produce, and other techniques for realizing the objects of management, together with basic sciences such as forest physiology, ecology, soils, mycology, zoology, economics, wood structure, etc.

African Journal of Wood Science and Forestry aims to advance the wood science and forestry professions by keeping wood scientists and professional foresters informed about developments and ideas related to the practice of forestry. The journal publishes editorials related to topics of general interest to natural resource and forest management. Articles are generally written for an audience of non-specialists, with topics spanning the many facets or disciplines of forestry.

Modern wood science and forestry generally embraces a broad range of concerns, in what is known as multiple-use management, including the provision of timber, fuel wood, wildlife habitat, natural water quality management, recreation, landscape and community protection, employment, aesthetically appealing landscapes, biodiversity management, watershed management, erosion control, and preserving forests as 'sinks' for atmospheric carbon dioxide.

Topics covered by AJWSF include:

• Agroforestry
• Analog forestry
• Applied forestry
• Bamboo cultivation
• Boreal forestry
• Close to nature forestry
• Community forestry
• Dendrology
• Ecoforestry
• Energy forestry
• Forest ecology
• Forest ecology and management
• Forest economics
• Forest economics
• Forest engineering, forest science and forest technology
• Forest entomology, forest pathology
• Forest hydrology
• Forest management
• Forest mensuration
• Forest meteorology
• Forest pathology
• Hardwood timber
• Mycoforestry
• National and international forest management
• Permaforestry
• Plantation forestry
• Research, practice and policy
• Short rotation coppice
• Short rotation forestry
• Silviculture
• Social forestry
• Sustainable development of forests, woodlands and trees
• Sustainable forest
• Sustainable forestry
• Tree breeding
• Tree farm
• Tropical forest, rain forest
• Tropical forestry
• Urban forestry
• World forestry

The mission of this journal is to publish the most complete and reliable source of information on the discoveries and current developments in all areas of the field, thus making them freely available online without any restrictions or any other subscriptions to researchers worldwide.

Open Access 

• All articles published by this journal are made freely and permanently accessible online immediately upon publication, without subscription charges or registration barriers.  
• All works published by this journal are under the terms of the Creative Commons Attribution License (CC-BY). 
• Authors of articles published in this journal are the copyright holders of their articles and have granted to any third party, in advance and in perpetuity, the right to use, reproduce or disseminate articles.

Article-processing charges

African Journal of Wood Science and Forestry levies an article-processing charge of $500 (USD) for each article accepted for publication. The journal does not charge a submission fee. Authors are required to pay the manuscript handling fee only after their manuscripts have been reviewed and accepted for publication by an editor. Authors can request a waiver or discount during the submission process as the journal routinely waive charges for authors from low-income countries.

ISJ offsets publication expenses – including the cost of peer review management, journal production, and online hosting and archiving – by charging an Article Processing Charge (APC), to authors, institutions or funders for each article published. This publication fees vary by journal and are payable upon article acceptance. 

Peer-review policy

Peer-review is the system used by ‎ African Journal of Wood Science and Forestry to assess the quality of a manuscript before it is published. Qualified researchers in the relevant research area assess submitted manuscripts for originality, validity and significance to help editors determine whether the manuscript should be published or not. 

African Journal of Tropical Agriculture operates a double-blind peer-review system, where the reviewers of the paper won't get to know the identity of the author(s), and the author(s) won't get to know the identity of the reviewer. The advantage of double-blind peer review is that it eliminates bias.

Manuscripts submitted to this journal will generally be reviewed by two or more experts who will be required to evaluate whether the manuscript is scientifically sound and coherent, whether it duplicates already published work, and whether or not the manuscript is sufficiently clear for publication. The Editors will reach a decision based on these reports and, where necessary, they will consult with members of the Editorial Board. 

Peer Review Process

When we receive an article for publication, it is checked by the journal’s editorial office to ensure that the files are in order. After this is done, the manuscript is assigned to three or more reviewers on the basis of their subject expertise. Based on the reports of the reviewers, our editor makes the decision to accept, reject or subject the article to further revisions.

Once the manuscript is finally accepted, the article would need to undergo final check by the journal editorial office. After this, the author would be notified of the acceptance of their articles. Galley proofs are sent to the corresponding authors who are expected to read and correct any typographical or grammatical errors. Once proofs are returned by authors to the editorial office, an invoice is sent to the corresponding author. After we received payment for the article, the manuscript is usually included in the next issue of the journal. As soon as the article is published on the journal’s website, a publication notification is sent to the corresponding author with links to the issue and article.

Conflict of interest 

Public trust in the peer-review process and the integrity of published works depend in part on how well conflict of interest is handled during writing, peer review, and editorial decision making. Conflict of interest exists when an author (or the author’s institution), reviewer, or editor has financial or personal relationships that influence his or her actions. At ISJ, authors are required to disclose all financial/relevant interest that may have influenced the development of the manuscript.

Reviewers are advised to disclose any conflict of interest and if necessary, decline the review of any manuscript they perceive to have a conflict of interest. Editors should also decline from considering any manuscript that may have conflict of interest. Such manuscripts may be re-assigned to other editors.

A clear declaration of all possible conflicts – whether they actually had an influence or not – allows others to make informed decisions about the work and its review process.

Statement of Human and Animal Rights

Humans

When reporting experiments on human subjects, authors should indicate whether the procedures followed were in accordance with the ethical standards of the responsible committee on human experimentation (institutional and national) and with the Helsinki Declaration of 1975, as revised in 2008. If any doubt exists whether the research was conducted in accordance with the Helsinki Declaration, the authors must explain the rationale for their approach and demonstrate that the institutional review body explicitly approved the doubtful aspects of the study.

Animals

When reporting experiments on animals, authors should indicate whether the institutional and national guide for the care and use of laboratory animals was followed. The materials and methods (experimental procedures) section must clearly indicate that appropriate measures were taken to minimize pain or discomfort, and details of animal care should be provided.

Informed Consent

Authors should not include patient information such as names, initials, or hospital numbers, in written descriptions, photographs, and pedigrees unless the information is required for scientific purposes and the patient (or parent/ guardian) has given written, informed consent.

When informed consent has been obtained, it should be indicated in the published article and a copy of the 'Patient Informed Consent Form' for each patient should be included during article submission. Authors should provide written verification that all the study participants have been shown the final manuscript to be published.

Plagiarism

The editors of ISJ take a very serious stance against any evidence of plagiarism including self-plagiarism in manuscripts submitted to them. Every reasonable effort will be made to investigate any allegations of plagiarism brought to their attention, as well as instances that come up during the peer review process. 

ISJ Self-Archiving Policy

Authors of articles published in any of our journals are permitted to self-archive the submitted (preprint) and accepted (peer-reviewed) version of the article at any time. There is no embargo period. At ISJ, we strongly believe that self-archiving makes research to be widely “visible, accessible, harvestable, searchable, and useable,” thus increasing its reach and impact, and possibly the number of citations it receives.

The submitted version may be placed on:

The author's personal website

The author's company/institutional repository or archive

Not for profit subject-based preprint servers or repositories

Benefits of publishing in this journal

At ISJ, we continue to work hard to support our authors who trust us with their works. Here are just some of the benefits we provide:

• Open Access: Our research is freely available to all, from the time of publication. Readers do not need a subscription or to register before they can access our articles.
• ‎High visibility: ISJ allows maximum visibility of articles published in the journal as they are available to the widest possible scientific outreach, including to the general public.
• Rapid publication: The timeframe between acceptance and publication is about 3 weeks. All ISJ journals offer a fast publication schedule.
• Rigorous peer-review: ISJ is operated by a team of experienced professional editors. We work closely with academic editors and reviewers to provide authors with an efficient, fair, and constructive reviews.
• Post-publication comments: ISJ allows readers and authors to exchange ideas that are directly accessible from the full-text article.
• International readership: All articles are being accessed from over 200 countries worldwide.
• Promotion and press coverage: Articles published in this journal are included in article alerts and regular email updates.
• Access and reach: We continue to submit our journals to all known abstracting and indexing services.
• Flexibility: ISJ journals gives you the opportunity to publish at your convenience.
• Copyright: Authors retain the copyright to their works. Authors are allowed unlimited use and/or distribution of their work without any form of restriction. As an author of an article published in any ISJ journal, you retain the copyright of your article and you are free to reproduce and disseminate your work.

Subscription Information

To subscribe for an article published by any of our journals, kindly contact editor@internationalscholarsjournals.com. The subscription rate is $350 and it is the same for all countries. The subscription charges are inclusive of delivery charges. All journals are open access and subscribers shall receive the print edition.