Submissions

Author Guidelines

Author Guidelines

Open Access:  AJHECE provides open access to its content on the principle that making research freely available to the public and scholarly community supports a greater global exchange of knowledge. There are no manuscript submission nor processing charges associated with the AJHECE.

Online submission: AJHECE is hosted by RHODES UNIVERSITY and requires online submission. To submit a manuscript contributors will need to register as a new user, or log-in if a user profile exists. All manuscripts must be submitted through the online submission system available on the journal’s website.

Manuscripts: Submissions should be between 6000 and a maximum of 7500 words in length.  An abstract of 250 words should summarise the objectives, methods, results and conclusion of the study. Include 4-6 key words that accurately represent the content of the manuscript. Footnotes should be avoided. All pages should be numbered. The first page should include the title, author/s names and affiliations, corresponding author’s contact details and any acknowledgments.

Where available, URLs for the references have to be provided. Text, 1.5 spaced; 12 point font either Times New Roman or Arial; employ italics, rather than underlining (except with URL addresses); and all illustrations, figures, and tables should be placed in the text and clearly marked. 

The final manuscript must be professionally edited and a letter from the editor to be attached to it (to be submitted as a supplementary file). Professional grammar and language editing is the sole responsibility of the author(s), without it the manuscript will not be considered for review.

The submission should be uploaded as an editable Microsoft Word document. Please ensure that all electronic files are virus free before uploading.

Authors' Name(s) and Surname(s), ORCiD  and affiliation(s),  must be removed from the final manuscript, and submitted as a supplementary file.

Referencing in the text: This journal uses the APA (American Psychological Association) referencing style.  Referencing in text should be quoted by the name and date in brackets, e.g., (Jones, 1970) or Smith (1983) or UNCED (1992) or (Jones, 1979; Smith & Le Roux, 1983, p.183).

References: These should be listed in alphabetical order by the author’s surname. If several papers by the same author and from the same year are cited; a, b, c, etc. should be included after the year of publication. Please separate individual references with a blank line. The references should be listed in full at the end of the paper in the following standard form:

For books: Handy, C.B. (1985). Understanding organisations (3rd edn). Harmondsworth: Penguin.

For journal articles: Boschuizen, R. & Brinkman, F.G. (1990). A proposal for a teaching strategy based on pre-instructional ideas of pupils. European Journal of Teacher Education, 14(2), 45–56.

For chapters within books: Little, A. (1990). The role of assessment re-examined in international context. In P. Broadfoot, R. Murphey & H. Torrance (Eds), Changing educational assessment. London: Routledge. pp.213–245.

For policy documents: UNCED (United Nations Conference on Environment and Development). (1992). Agenda 21 (Chapter 36). United Nations Conference on Environment and Development, Rio de Janeiro.

Unpublished theses: Gobrechts, E. (1995).The recycling of domestic waste in the Cape Peninsula: Implications for environmental education. Unpublished master’s thesis, Department of Education, Rhodes  University, South Africa.

Unpublished reports: Gysae-Edkins, M. (Ed.). (1994). Report on the Environmental Education Workshop. Lesotho Association of Non-formal Education, Morjia.

For personal communication: Moosa,V.M.(2003). Minister of Environmental Affairs and Tourism, Ministry of Environmental Affairs and Tourism, Pretoria, 16 June 2003.

For email: Nhamo, G. (2003). Request for official position and update on the Plastic Bags Regulation implementation. Email, 1 October 2003.

For website: DEAT (Department of Environmental Affairs and Tourism). (2003). Inspection of readiness of retailers on the eve of Plastic Bag Regulations effect. http://www.environment.gov.za, visited 8 May 2003.

Peer Review Process: All submitted manuscripts undergo a rigorous double blind peer review process to ensure high quality and unbiased evaluations. Authors will receive feedback from the reviewers and be asked to revise their manuscripts accordingly. The editorial decision (acceptance, revision or rejection) will be communicated to the corresponding author.

Plagiarism: Manuscripts will have to be checked for plagiarism using turnitin. Authors are fully responsible for any plagiarism and should check their manuscripts before submission. By submitting a paper to the journal, authors agree that journal editors may check the paper via turnitin if necessary.

Editing: The editors reserve the right to edit manuscripts, but will endeavour to check all significant editorial changes with the authors.

Errata: Post-publication errors and falsification claims should be brought to the attention of the editorial team. This will be investigated and the online manuscript will be corrected at the discretion of the Editor-in-Chief. In the case of fundamental corrections, a notification of correction will be sent to the journal database and posted on the home page.

ORCID: Published authors will be required to submit their unique scientific ORCID  

Publication Ethics and Copyright: Authors must adhere to high ethical standards, including plagiarism prevention, accurate reporting and obtaining necessary permissions for copyrighted material. By submitting a manuscript, the authors certify that the work is original,  has not been previously published, nor is it before another journal for consideration. Use of AI or AI assisted tools in the research approaches of the submissions should be disclosed by the authors, if the manuscript has been accepted for publication.

Authors retain their copyright but must agree to make manuscripts submitted to the AJHECE accessible according to the Creative Commons Attribution 4.0 International (CC BY 4.0) licence. Under this licence, users are allowed to read, download, copy, distribute, print, search, crawl for indexing or link to the full texts of the manuscripts or use them for any other lawful purpose without asking prior permission from the publisher or the author. It is acknowledged that all material will be available for commercial and non-commercial use and distribution in all mediums as long as the author and journal are properly credited in the use thereof.

Future Reviewing: Published authors automatically include themselves as reviewers for future publications.

Reviewer guidelines

Please note that the AJHECE editorial team is committed to the developmental approach to publication and therefore reviewers' constructive comments are appreciated. 

Manuscripts: We welcome submissions of quantitative, qualitative, and mixed-methods empirical studies and also manuscripts that utilise new and emerging methodological techniques and approaches in community engagement. Manuscript submissions should be based on a solid conceptual/theoretical framework and/or demonstrate central participation of students and/or community partners and advance the discipline and scholarship of community engagement. Manuscripts should be between 6500 to 7500 words.

The following questions provide guidelines for the review process and serve to inform reviewers’ final recommendations for manuscripts received:

Scholarly Contribution

Questions to consider:

• Does the manuscript discuss an important, new, innovative, and/or timely issue that advances community engagement as a discipline
• Does the manuscript describe an innovative partnership or approach?
• Does the author\s show originality of thought and creativity?
• Does the manuscript expand our understanding of the topic or insightfully promotes the nexus between community engagement, teaching and learning, and research?
• Does the author\s present a logical and sufficient rationale regarding the primary topic of the manuscript?
• Has the author\s identified gaps in the extant literature that this study seeks to fill?
• Does the manuscript advance a form (e.g. CBSL, Volunteerism or CBPR) of community engagement
• Does the manuscript advance the objectives of the African Journal of Higher Education Community Engagement (AJHECE)

Relevance to Community Engagement

Questions to consider:

• Does the manuscript demonstrate best practice\s of community engagement?
• Does the manuscript demonstrate central involvement of students and/or community partners?
• Will the topic generate interest in large segment of the journal’s readership?
• Does the manuscript draw on the relevant work and extant literature in the topic area?

Research Context

Questions to consider:

• Does the author\s provide sufficient information about the university, community, community partner and community issue being addressed?
• Does the author\s present alternative points of view when appropriate?
• Is the paper free from prejudice and bias?
• Is the author’s own point of view vis-à-vis the paper’s topic clearly positioned?
• Does the topic add to the extant literature on community engagement’s values and principles for the Global South or a decolonized context?

Theoretical/Conceptual/Philosophical Foundation

Questions to consider:

• Does the author\s appropriately identify a clear theoretical\conceptual\philosophical foundation that guides the execution of the research?
• Are the study’s research questions appropriately connected to the theoretical\conceptual\philosophical foundation identified by the author\s?
• Does the study’s theoretical\conceptual\philosophical perspectives contribute to the decolonization discourse or knowledge systems of the Global South?

Research Methodology

Questions to consider:

• Does the manuscript contain a detailed methodology section that includes a full explanation of
  • Participant selection,
  • Materials utilized,
  • Study design,
  • Data sources, and
  • Rigorous and appropriate analytic approaches?
• Was ethics approval secured? If not, are reasons provided?
• Does the author engage with potential limitations of their methodological choices?
• Were community partners involved in the research process?
• Is this an engaged research paper?

Recommendations for Findings and Implications sections

Questions to consider:

• Are the research findings presented clearly in a way that informs theory, practice, and/or policy?
• Has the study extended, revised, filled a gap, or forged new ground in the literature?
• Does the author\s outline the limitations of the study and areas for future research?

Recommendations for the Conclusion section:

Questions to consider:

• Does the author\s cogently tell how this study contributes to the literature?
• Does the study expand our understanding of the topic or insightfully links to other topics or disciplines?
• Can the best practices and lessons learned identified by the author\s be applied to a broader context?
• Do the conclusions and/or recommendations keep with the primary focus of the article 

Style, Organization, and Readability

Questions to consider:

• Does the manuscript present information clearly, logically, and concisely?
• Is the manuscript readable and written so as to maintain reader’s interest?
• Does the manuscript conform to APA formatting?
• Does the manuscript contain minimal jargon?