About the Journal
The Journal publishes two (2) volumes in a year in June and December.
Open Access Policy Statement of The Zoologist
Effective 01 December, 2022 The Zoologist switched to Open Access publication under the Open Access Licence Creative Commons Attribution-NonCommercial-ShareAlike 4.0 International Licence (CC BY-NC-SA 4.0).
The Zoologist Open Access policy is as stated below:
- The copyright is to the Zoological Society of Nigeria (©The Zoological Society of Nigeria).
- Articles published in the journal are distributed under Creative Commons Attribution-NonCommercial-ShareAlike Licence (CC BY-NC-SA 4.0).
- The Licence permits non-commercial use, copying, redistribution, remixing and adaptation of articles published in The Zoologist provided the original work is properly cited and the new work has identical licence.
- Authors that publish their articles in The Zoologist, therefore agree to the distribution under CC BY-NC-SA 4.0 (https://creativecommons.org/licenses/by-nc-sa/4.0/).
The forgoing is for all authors and readers of The Zoologist, consequently all previous volumes will be gradually available to readers Free.
Editorial Policy
The Editorial Team targets a maximum of one month to take final decision on all submitted manuscripts. All accepted articles will be published immediately as online first. The Zoologist provides excellent editorial services and mentorship to young academics and authors whose native language is not English.
All manuscripts submitted to the journal are believed to be original and are neither under review by another journal nor published elsewhere. The journal operates a three-stage review system. In the first stage, manuscripts are subjected to first editorial review, which includes plagiarism check. Manuscripts outside the coverage area of the journal or that do not meet the journal’s quality or have high plagiarism score are rejected at this point. At the second stage, manuscripts that pass editorial review are subjected to peer review. At the third stage, recommendations of the reviewers on the manuscripts are subjected to second editorial review and the final decision taken by the editors.
Peer Review system
Blind copies of manuscripts are sent to two anonymous expert reviewers.
The decision of the editors on the manuscript is final. Authors are advised to subject their manuscripts to plagiarism check as the journal will check all articles for plagiarism before acceptance. Any article that fails plagiarism test will be rejected and the author(s) so informed.
Change of authorship
Authors are advised to considered carefully all authors and order of authors before submission of manuscripts. Request for inclusion and/or exclusion of author(s) or change of the position of author(s) can only be considered before acceptance of the manuscript and will be approved in only exceptional cases. The authors been added or removed must also indicate in writing that they agree to the change. The corresponding author and all authors of the manuscript must indicate in writing the reasons for the change in authorship. After acceptance of the manuscript no request for change in authorship will be entertained.
After Acceptance
The corresponding author of an accepted manuscript will receive the galley proof by email and will be required to proofread and correct minor editorial errors in the manuscript. Major corrections that change the number of pages and structure of the manuscript will require the approval of the Editor-in-Chief and may necessitate another review of the manuscript. Authors are advised to pay keen attention to ensure that the galley proof are error-free.
The Zoologist publishes online first; accepted articles are published immediately in PDF format. Digital Object Identifier (DOI) is assigned to the article, which makes it fully searchable.
Errata
The editorial team will work closely with authors and the publisher to ensure that all articles are published error-free but where major errors are identified after publication, such errors will be corrected as errata in the next volume of the journal.
Repository Policy
Authors of articles published in The Zoologist are free to deposit all versions (submitted, accepted, galley proof and published versions) of their articles in any repository of their choice without any restriction.
Initiative for Open Citations
The Zoologist endorses Initiative for Open Citation (I4OC) because the initiative will increase the availability of structured, separable and open data on citations. This will increase availability of citation data to researchers from Africa and other developing countries. Consequently, enhancing the opportunities of researchers from these regions to make significant scholarly contributions, otherwise unattainable were these resources to be held in paid platforms.
Contacts
Professor Adiaha A.A. Ugwumba
Editor-in-Chief
Department of Zoology, Faculty of Science
University of Ibadan, Ibadan, Oyo State, Nigeria
+2348023416164
zoologisteditorinchief@gmail.com
Professor Georgina S. Mwansat
Deputy Editor-in-Chief
Department of Zoology
Faculty of Science
University of Jos, Jos, Plateau State, Nigeria
+2347066143531
georginamwansat@gmail.com
Professor Okechukwu I. Okogwu
Managing Editor
Department of Applied Biology
Faculty of Science
Ebonyi State University
PMB 53 Abakaliki, Ebonyi State, Nigeria
+2348052400929
managingeditortz@gmail.com
