Reflections on editing African Journal of Herpetology 2009-2017

Today is my last day as editor of African Journal of Herpetology. In this blog post, I reflect on 9 years of being editor in chief.

In 2009, I had already published 37 papers so had a pretty good idea of the author side of the publishing game. I had been outraged at decisions that I felt had been unfair, surprised at others which I had felt were too easy, and often mystified at the rejection without review for manuscripts that I had prepared for journals. And when reviewers disagreed about my manuscripts, why did the editor came down on the side of rejecting or calling for major revisions? In essence, what I didn’t know was how editors made their decisions.

Don Broadley started the Journal of the Herpetological Association of Africa in 1965 and edited it for 20 years. The name changed to African Journal of Herpetology in 1996 with many prestigious names in African herpetology having been editors (see Measey 2011 for a detailed retrospective). I had submitted manuscripts that had been both rejected and accepted under two different editors. The editor in 2008 was Alex Flemming who had taken over from Graham Alexander in 2006 but had already resigned so that the Herpetological Association of Africa (HAA) committee was looking for a replacement editor. I realised that this was an opportunity I had been looking for and volunteered. I was proposed and in the absence of any other interest was made editor.

I have already written about the huge workload that I took on at that time not only editing, but also publishing the journal (you can find that blog entry here). Together with that added workload, I had the dubious honour of typesetting a manuscript of my own, already accepted by Alex Flemming (Ngawa et al 2009). The decision to hand over the publishing to Taylor & Francis was taken after long discussions with the HAA committee, but finally resulted in Volume 59 issue 1 (see cover above). One of the enjoyable tasks I undertook was to redesign the journal logo. The old journals carried a map of Africa with political boundaries, so I decided to retain the theme but replace politics with outlines of herps. I selected images representing as many groups of herps as I could (yes - there is a caecilian covering much of Algeria and an amphisbaenian in Namibia), and drew simple outlines around them. It was fun to do and I was proud of the result, and surprised when I received complaints from HAA members that they preferred the old version. But I shouldn't have been surprised as there will always be those who don't like change.

Of huge significance to my life as editor was the move to an editorial online platform which allowed simple tracking of manuscripts in which both Associate Editors and I could visualise the peer review process. Trying to maintain a personal, professional and editorial inbox all in the same place was quite a challenge, and so the editorial online platform was very welcome.

Acting as editor for my own manuscripts

Early on, I had to make a decision about what to do when I wanted to submit my own manuscripts to AJH, or if I was a co-author. The conflict of interest was clear and my decision was to have any such manuscripts handled by a designated Associate Editor and to recuse myself from the review and decision making process. I was very strict with this, even though it resulted in one unhappy episode when a review for a manuscript I had submitted was withheld until a rival paper had been submitted, accepted and published in another journal. My co-authors felt particularly unhappy that our paper had spent so long in review. I felt let down by the Associate Editor who had allowed the reviewer to sit with our manuscript for months.

Policies old and new

This was not the only policy decision that I took for AJH. I decided on a double-blind peer review process. In retrospect I still think that this was a good decision, although many authors appeared incapable of removing their names from a manuscript, and persuading them to do so caused a surprising amount of delay. African Herpetology is a small world, and I didn’t really think that reviewers would not guess who senior authors were for most of the papers. However, there was evidence at the time that women authors could be disadvantaged by open peer-review (Budden et al 2008), and I didn’t want this to happen to any of our student authors. The other option would have been to have both reviewers and authors revealed, but this seemed less likely to be workable as anonymous reviewers were already hard to come by. Occasionally, reviewers would insist that their anonymity be waived. Although noble, this would have been against the spirit of double-blind reviewing and so reviewer names were systematically removed. Thus, double-blind review became (and remains) a headache for the editorial process, but one that I think is worth keeping, even though authors and reviewers alike couldn’t follow instructions.

The inability of especially authors to follow comprehensive instructions was perhaps the major theme that ran through my time as editor of AJH. Early on in the process, I revised the Instructions to Authors, making it as comprehensive as I could. I’ve never been someone who enjoys formatting manuscripts for a particular journal style, and so did not insist that manuscripts adhered to the peculiar referencing style of AJH on first submission. I was also happy for this first submission to have embedded figures and tables. However, it isn’t possible to submit such files to the publishers, and if the manuscript passed the first round of reviewing, formatting of text and files would need to be done by the authors. Many found this difficult and producing the figures in an acceptable format appears particularly problematic for many authors. Some seemed to think that this was something that the editor would do for them!

AJH received many manuscripts that were outside its scope: African herpetology. The instructions to authors couldn’t have been more explicit in this regard and I do wonder how often some authors consult them at all. It would be nice to think that being a ‘chancer’ in this respect might have a pay-off somewhere down the line. However, one fault of the editorial platform is that it takes a very long time to enter all the meta-data required for the publisher to place accepted manuscripts online. Authors, especially older authors, grumble about this a lot, but it is a reality of modern publishing. More and more meta-data is expected to be displayed separately to the printed paper, and this requires that authors enter it. That they do this on initial submission means a whole lot of work when the scope of the journal is completely wrong, thus I don't see any pay-off for being a chancer in this case.

Another policy change occurred in 2013 when AJH moved to use ZooBank to safeguard against taxonomic theft. You can read more about that change here.

AJH for African herpetologists

I also wanted to encourage authors from more countries in Africa to submit their work to the journal. Although I didn't get the numbers of manuscripts I would have wanted, the journal did see an increase in the number of papers published from authors outside of southern Africa. More recently, the journal has published a number of papers from north Africa, including the first paper in AJH on African salamanders. 

Thus in my time as editor, AJH published on all three Orders of Amphibia: Anura, Gymnophiona and Caudata, as well as a lot of papers on reptiles.

How easy did it turn out to make decisions?

Decisions were much easier than one might think. For the majority manuscripts that were sent out to review, the reviewers did a good job of assessing the worthiness of publication. The difference between minor and major revisions was determined by whether or not another review was likely to be needed on resubmission. My suggestion to Associate Editors was that manuscripts that had already received a decision of Minor Revision shouldn’t be sent out to review again unless something major had changed. Probably the most difficult decisions were where I could see that useful data had likely been collected, but the manuscript lacked pertinent detail to know whether or not it was ever likely to be accepted. The decision to Reject and Resubmit often results in a great amount of time for the Associate Editor involved to wade through poorly written manuscripts. Reviewers were also burdened. However, in some cases, authors did eventually publish their work in the journal and these were sometimes good additions to the literature that would otherwise have been lost.

Another policy was to prevent more than 2 rounds of review. It can be very frustrating for authors to go through multiple rounds of peer review, especially if additional reviewers are brought in on later rounds as they inevitably have new comments. My policy was that once a paper had received two decisions as Major to Minor Revisions, the third submission should be handled by the Associate Editor, and not sent out to review again. For the most part, I think this policy worked well. There were, and always will be, exceptions to any such editorial procedure. 

The peer in peer review

During my time as editor, I co-authored an editorial that appeared in many of the world's herpetological journals: The 'peer' in 'Peer Review'. The basis of this editorial is something that I'm sure all editors are finding, that increasingly our colleagues are all too happy to turn down conducting peer reviews. Sadly, this is not an affliction of only herpetological journals, and I see the same problems in my work editing for PeerJ. I find it especially distressing when the peers themselves are authors who rely on the process of peer review for their publications. While we can't always conduct every review we are asked to do, we can make the effort at least to reply and make a suggestion of another reviewer to the editor. 

Should everyone be an editor at least once?

I do feel that everyone should participate in the peer-review process. You should expect to review something equal to the work that you produce for other reviewers. The role of editor is a massive burden on top of reviewing. Some of this is carried by Associate Editors who I found did a sterling job of helping authors get their manuscripts published. If you feel inclined to become an editor then you should volunteer to become an Associate Editor for a set period. Ask up front how many manuscripts you’ll be asked to handle each year and what turn-around time the editor expects. Do this before you sign up to be an editor, as it’ll give you most of the information you need before you decide.

Personal happiness

In July 2013 a would be author wrote to inquire whether her research on fossil African frogs would be appropriate for AJH. I responded positively and also that I had a keen interest in the subject. Thalassa and I met up to talk about it later in the year. Unexpectedly, it transpired that editing the journal had led directly to me meeting my wife. We married in December 2016 (see blog post here). It's not something that I would have predicted when I took on the job back in 2009.

There has been more happiness as editor of AJH. I have headed a team which has helped many first time authors get their work publised in a scientific journal. The team work of associate editors and peer reviewers cannot be underestimated and has led to the direct improvement of every manuscript that AJH has published in my time as editor. I am very grateful for all of the work that associate editors (past and present) have put into the journal. I am thankful also for all of the authors that have chosen to submit their work to the journal.

It’s all about helping authors

I am happy that in my time as editor of AJH I’ve been able to contribute to helping many authors produce decent peer review publications. The team of Associate Editors that I’ve been privileged to work with has always managed to assist authors produce something better. Most reviews have been constructive and in the spirit that we all benefit from good literature.

Read editorial reports published in African Herp News:

Measey, J. (2017) African journal of herpetology editor’s report 2017. African Herp News 64: 4-6. pdf

Measey, J. (2015) African Journal of Herpetology Editor’s report. African Herp News 62: 6-8. pdf

Measey, J. (2013) Taxonomic publishing, vandalism and best practice: African Journal of Herpetology makes changes that will safeguard authors. African Herp News 60: 2-4. pdf

Measey, J. (2013) Journal Editor’s report. African Herp News  59: 8-10. pdf

Measey, J. (2011) Journal Editor’s report. African Herp News 53: 5-7. pdf

Our Capensibufo paper is published in Am Nat

This amazing paper came about during the Honours thesis of Francois Becker when he studied the 7 years of CMR data that we had accumulated on Capensibufo rosei. What Francois found astounded us all, that the survival of these toads was correlated extremely well with rainfall during the breeding period.

Here's the graph that we found so amazing. Survival probability varies between 0.04 and 0.92, and 94% of this variation was explained by variation in breeding-season rainfall. This result seemed completely counter-intuitive. Surely during a period with good rainfall we'd expect animals to do well? The answer we suspect is that they do so well, sitting out in the puddles during the wet weather, that they lose condition and don't make it through to breed the next year. Conversely, in a dry year, the animals don't spend long in their puddles and so go back to ground very early.

In this video clip, you can see some of the amazing scenes from mating behaviour of this species.

We now know that these animals are endemic to the Cape peninsula, but suspect that the other species all have similar life-histories. 

Showing aSCR to the BES

Marike Louw spent her prize winning money (from the CIB ARM 2016) on attending the BES meeting in Ghent, Belgium. 

The meeting gave Marike a chance to display a poster on her MSc reseasrch, and meet people who were interested in the technique.

It was great to see the level of interest in aSCR is high, and the enthusiasm with which Marike explained the technique to the masses.

How does research get translated into policy?

Work on invasive Xenopus laevis by a consortium of labs in Belgium, France, Germany, Portugal and South Africa has produced research that helped to brief European policy makers.

“According to our research, climate change could increase invasion risk of predatory frogs such as the African clawed frogs. Areas in France and the UK are particularly vulnerable to invasions because of their increasing suitability as a habitat with warming temperatures. This situation requires priority setting and better anticipation of future invasions.” Anthony Herrel, coordinator for the BiodivERsA-funded project INVAXEN.

The policy brief above features the MeaseyLab publication: Frog eat frog.

Teaching Philosophy

From 2012 to 2014, I was a senior lecturer in the Department of Zoology at Nelson Mandela Metropolitan University, where I taught all years (1^st, 2^nd and 3^rd years as well as postgraduate students). Lecturing responsibilities changed from year to year, but my regular commitments included Cell Biology (approximate class size 120) and Population Genetics (approximate class size 30). During this period I attended a Scholarship of Teaching and Learning (SoTL) course, and for this was required to develop a teaching portfolio, including a teaching philosophy. 

I still teach undergraduates now, and so the following teaching philosophy, adapted from the SoTL portfolio that I wrote in 2013, is still relevant. 

A teaching philosophy statement should be recognised by students as being something that they can relate to and value in their teacher. A teaching philosophy statement should also be something that I can look to in order change and improve my teaching on a day to day and year to year basis. It should be timeless and continually inspire me to improve my teaching content, practices and ideas.

It is with this last thought that I have come to my new teaching philosophy statement:

“To facilitate the learning of acquisition of skillsets for the 21^st century workplace, using biology as a model system.”

The rationale behind this teaching philosophy is as follows:

• The 21^st century workplace is not a traditional job (job-for-life) scenario, but one that is dynamic (typical contracts are 1-5 years) and each new job is likely to require the acquisition of new skills.
• New skills are likely to have a shelf-life (particularly in terms of information technology), but the approach to learning new skills is likely to remain the same. Thus I do not expect students to learn the same skills in the framework that I am teaching them, but I do expect that they will have the ability to learn new skills.
• The philosophy requires of students that they are open to learning in new ways. This challenges them against their previous learning experiences in school, but also enables and unburdens them to new possibilities of learning in different ways. The hope is that each will discover how to learn in a way that suits them best.
• I do have a responsibility to teach students biology, but I know for a fact that few will find jobs in what is a specialised field. Instead, I consider it more realistic to use biology as a model for learning core skills in a 21^st century environment. Biology is a relevant subject here as it has a long history (they remain as founding departments of most universities), dating back to the origins of human scholarly interest with Aristotle (384-322 BC: Owen 1992), and continues to be at the forefront of human scientific endeavour.
• I cannot expect that all students will finish their degrees and gain employment in a zoological field, or if they do that this will last anything more than a few years. Indeed, students may come to a biological job after many other contracts and find that it has little bearing on the degree that they did years before. There will be a few (lucky) students who do get jobs that are directly relevant to the discipline and the lectures that they have been taught, but this will be a minority as there are simply not many jobs available that relate directly to this subject. They will not, however, be disadvantaged by this teaching philosophy which will continue to provide all the information and skills that they require. But this approach will benefit them in providing for them as aspects of their job change with time – as change they will.
• In order for me to achieve this teaching philosophy, I will need to keep abreast of advances in skillsets used in workplaces. An important part of this is done through my own research where I work with many collaborators who are employed in different areas of the biological sciences. Re-skilling has become a constant theme of my own career, spanning some 30 years and (almost) as many techniques and skills. I think that at first the constant need to learn is daunting, then annoying but eventually liberating as the challenge of learning new skills becomes a pleasure.
• As their teacher, I provide both the environment and materials for students to learn key goals: proficiency in written communication, verbal presentation and team working. To some extent, I also provide the motivation through my chosen model subject area of biology. My approach is to provide this support through as many different avenues as possible.
• Learning itself becomes the subject of this new philosophical statement, with the (somewhat tautological) “learning to learn” objective of studies.

There are some skills that students must learn for any work place, and these will be at the core of the teaching: written communication; verbal presentation; team working. These core skills will be at the basis of each course and progressive courses should develop these skills as the degree proceeds. These then become the main goals for my students.

One key point is to make these goals (and my teaching philosophy) explicit to the class. Without this, it will be hard for them to set their own goals, or see the significance of tasks that are set. I think that there is a duality between who the students in our classes are, and who we would like them to be. I believe that one of the only ways for teachers and students to come closer to common goals is to make the goals explicit with explanations of how tasks and exercises aim to achieve the goals. To this end, support for students should be given in the context of achieving the common goals with a reiteration of how those goals are relevant to their own advancement.

Owen, R. (1992). The Hunterian Lectures in Comparative Anatomy (May and June 1837), Phillip Reid Sloan (ed.), Chicago: University of Chicago Press.