Science Conservation Series | National Marine Sanctuaries

The Conservation Series is a publication Series hosted by the Office of National Marine Sanctuaries. It provides a forum to publish reports that focus on the complex issues facing the sanctuary system. Click here for a FAQ about the Series!

Listing of Publications

Reports published in the Conservation Series since it began in 1999 are available for viewing or downloading.

Submission and Publication Process

It typically takes 2 - 3 months from the time of submission to publication, as outlined below;

Submitting Your Report

The document should be submitted electronically (in MS Word) to the Office of National Marine Sanctuaries (onmsconsSeries@noaa.gov). All submitted manuscripts must meet the standards set forth in the Conservation Series Guidance and Template. Please contact onmsconsSeries@noaa.gov for a copy of this template. In addition to submitting the report, when appropriate, a list of any experts who have already reviewed the draft should also be submitted.

Peer Review

Every report submitted to the Conservation Series is reviewed by a minimum of three individuals who are considered to be experts in their field and were not involved in the development of the report. The reviewers are given one month to review the report and are expect to submit comments and edits based on the quality, completeness, and accuracy of the document. ONMS compiles the edits and comments from all of the reviewers and forwards to the author.

Report Editing

The author edits the report based on reviewer comments. Once completed, the author must return two versions of the report back to ONMS. The first should include all of the reviewers’ comments along with the author’s edits made in track changes mode. If the author does not agree with a comment made by a reviewer and feels that no change is necessary, a statement must be included in the comment bubble noting the disagreement. The second version of the report should have all the changes accepted - essentially a "cleaned up" version of the report that addresses all reviewer comments and meets the formatting guidelines.

Final Review

A final review of the report is conducted by ONMS to ensure all reviewer comments were addressed and that the report has been formatted appropriately according to the Conservation Series guidelines.

Publication

The final document is made available to the public through posting on the ONMS website at sanctuaries.noaa.gov.

Press Release

If the content of the report is deemed newsworthy, ONMS staff will draft and circulate a press release and might also post information through social media outlets.