Editor's message: Student involvement

Abstract

In the initial Editor's Message of this volume, I stated my intent to involve more students in the publication process. A number of people commented on it being a good idea, but only a couple have followed up. One was Paul Krausman, President of The Wildlife Society. We matched graduate students from the University of Montana wildlife program with manuscripts where each student served as a reviewer. Students were the third reviewer on manuscripts within their area of interest and expertise. I found the experience to be entirely positive. Student reviews were often the first returned from the 3 reviewers. Many of the reviews were very insightful and provided useful information to the Associate Editor, the authors, and me. In fact, many of the reviews identified key points not raised by the other reviewers and these points were pretty much on target. As with all reviewers, they received a copy of my decision letter as well as copies of the other review comments. This allowed them to see how their review contributed to the fate of the manuscript. Hopefully, the experience gave them a good perspective of many aspects of the review process, a perspective that I hope will serve them well in their career. I invite any faculty who would like to explore similar experiences for their students to get in touch with me.

Citation

Block, Bill. 2012. Editor's message: Student involvement. Journal of Wildlife Management. 76(6): 1107.