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About the Onderstepoort Journal of Veterinary Research

This page includes information on the focus and scope of the Onderstepoort Journal of Veterinary Research as well as the policies and publication procedures. For details on how to prepare and submit a manuscript via the online manuscript submission system, please see the instructions for authors.

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Focus and scope ↑

The Onderstepoort Journal of Veterinary Research publishes articles that reports on original research covering all aspects of veterinary science. It specialises in diseases and the disease vectors of livestock and wildlife on the African continent. Although the journal has a specialised interest in infectious animal diseases and parasites (parasitology), many other aspects within this field can also be investigated. 

Aspects published in the journal are, but are not limited to, biochemistry, anatomy, microbiology, pathology, public health, physiology, pharmacology, and alternative veterinary medicine.

Historic overview of the Onderstepoort Journal of Veterinary Research ↑

It is generally accepted that Sir Arnold Theiler was the founder of Veterinary Science in South Africa. Arriving from Switzerland in Cape Town on 06 March 1891, he travelled to the Transvaal (formerly known as the Zuid-Afikaansche Republiek, or ZAR), where he was appointed as Government Veterinarian on 11 May 1896 after many adventures and mishaps.

The ‘Reports of the Government Veterinary Bacteriologist of the Transvaal’ were published between 1903 and 1910 and was succeeded by the ‘First to Eight Reports of the Director of Veterinary Research’ (1911–1918), the ‘Ninth to Fourteenth Reports of the Director of Veterinary Education and Research’ (1923–1928), the ‘Fifteenth Report of the Director of Veterinary Services’ (1929) and the ‘Sixteenth to Eighteenth Reports of the Director of Veterinary Services and Animal Industry’ (1930–1932). The Reports consisted of one or two issues per annum. During the later years, the Reports were subdivided into categories such as Virology, Parasitology, Pathology, Bacteriology and Toxicology. Consensus has it that the first issue of the Onderstepoort Journal of Veterinary Research, as we know it, was published in 1933 as ‘The Onderstepoort Journal of Veterinary Research and Animal Industry’ of which 24 volumes were published (1933–1950). In 1951 the title of the journal was yet again changed to what it is today, ‘The Onderstepoort Journal of Veterinary Research’, or the OPJ/OJVR as it is affectionately known, and has remained for the past 59 years.

From 1962, two issues per volume were published and from 1970 onward, four issues per volume. Because the Journal will now be published in electronic format, only volume numbers are given with the individual numbers falling away.

The Onderstepoort Journal of Veterinary Research, in its wider sense, has been in existence for 107 years during which time the editor has been the Director of the Onderstepoort Veterinary Research Institute, or the Onderstepoort Veterinary Institute (OVI). Up to 1977, the OPJ was an in-house journal, but Doctor Daan Verwoerd, editor at the time, allowed articles from the Faculty of Veterinary Science to be accepted. In 2001, a memorandum of understanding was signed between the Veterinary Faculty and the OVI. Professor Joop Boomker was appointed. The Editorial Board also helped to grow this journal from strength to strength.

The journal's presence has taken a landmark form to be the advocate of veterinary diseases and disease vectors of livestock and wildlife research on the African continent. The Onderstepoort Journal of Veterinary Research has a sound reputation for being a leader in the research and practitioner communities by ensuring that original and current research related to sciences are published.

Open Access ↑

Open Access refers to free and unrestricted access via the Internet to articles published in the Onderstepoort Journal of Veterinary Research. This free access has usage limitations as stipulated in the Creative Commons Attribution (CC-BY) usage license. The license allows redistribution and reuse of all articles on the condition that the Onderstepoort Journal of Veterinary Research is appropriately credited.

Peer review policy ↑

The Onderstepoort Journal of Veterinary Research has a double-blinded peer review process. Manuscripts are initially examined by editorial staff and are sent by the Editor-in-Chief to two expert independent reviewers, either directly or by a Section Editor. The editors do not inform the reviewers of the identity of the author(s). The reviewers’ identities are not disclosed to the authors either. The reviewers’ comments as well as recommendations regarding an article’s form may be passed on to the corresponding author and may also include suggested revisions. Manuscripts that are not approved for publication will not be returned to the submitting author in any format. Please note that AOSIS OpenJournals do not retain copies of rejected articles.

The peer review process aims to ensure that all published articles:

  • present the results of primary scientific research
  • report results that have not been published elsewhere
  • are scientifically sound
  • provide new scientific knowledge where experiments, statistics and other analyses are performed to a high technical standard and are described in sufficient detail so that another researcher will be able to reproduce the experiments described
  • provide conclusions that are presented in an appropriate manner and are supported by the data
  • are presented in an intelligible and logic manner and are written in clear and unambiguous English
  • meet all applicable research standards with regard to the ethics of experimentation and research integrity
  • adhere to appropriate reporting guidelines and community standards for data availability.

The journal publisher, AOSIS OpenJournals, is a member of the CrossCheck plagiarism detection initiative. In the event of suspected plagiarism in submitted works CrossCheck is available to the editors of the Onderstepoort Journal of Veterinary Research to detect instances of overlapping and similar text. AOSIS OpenJournals endorses and applies the standards of the Committee on Publication Ethics (COPE), which promotes integrity in peer-reviewed research publications.

Publication frequency ↑

The Onderstepoort Journal of Veterinary Research publishes one issue per year. Individual articles are published as soon as they are ready for publication by adding them to the table of contents of the 'current' volume and issue. In this way, the Onderstepoort Journal of Veterinary Research aims to speed up the process of manuscript publication from submission to becoming available on the website. Special issues may be added on an ad hoc basis to the journal throughout a particular year and will form part of consecutive issues thereafter.

Authors will be able to check the progress of their manuscript via the submission system at any time by logging into the journal website’s personalised section.

Monographs and special issues that formed part of Onderstepoort Journal of Veterinary Research through the years:

Indexing ↑

After publication in the Onderstepoort Journal of Veterinary Research, the complete text of each article is deposited immediately and permanently archived in major bibliographic databases:

Additionally, the Onderstepoort Journal of Veterinary Research uses the LOCKSS (Lots of Copies Keep Stuff Safe) system to create a distributed archiving system amongst participating libraries and permits those libraries to create permanent archives of the journal for purposes of preservation and restoration.

The journal is always seeking to establish a LOCKSS-compliant archive with university libraries. The URL to the LOCKSS Publisher Manifest for the Onderstepoort Journal of Veterinary Research  is: http://www.ojvr.org/index.php/ojvr/gateway/lockss 

Please inform us if you are using our manifest as we would like to add your name to the list above.

DoHET accreditation ↑

The following lists are regarded as accredited journals by the South African Department of Higher Education and Training (DoHET):

Journals appearing on the IBSS:

Journals appearing on the three indices of Thomson Reuters products:

List of approved South African journals: Journals that do not appear in the abovementioned international indices but are published in South Africa and meet specific criteria may be included in this list.

In conclusion: The Onderstepoort Journal of Veterinary Research meets the criteria of the DoHET (see List of approved South African journals as maintained by the DoHET and Science Citation Index). It is therefore accredited and approved by the DoHET for its inclusion in the subsidy system for being a research publication for South Africa.



ISSN: 0030-2465 (print) | ISSN: 2219-0635 (online)Follow us on:

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