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Indian Pediatr 2011;48: 67-68 |
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Time-lag from Submission to Printing in Indian
Biomedical Journals |
Jyoti Bagla and Devendra Mishra
Department of Pediatrics, Maulana Azad Medical College &
Associated Lok Nayak Hospital, 2, BSZ Marg,
New Delhi 110002, India.
Email: [email protected]
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The timeliness of publication in five Indian, clinical, biomedical
journals (Indian Pediatrics, The Indian Journal of Pediatrics,
Neurology India, The Indian Journal of Medical Research and
Journal of Postgraduate Medicine) from January 2007 to December 2008
was compared. The time from manuscript submission to publication for the
journals studied (median: 358.3 days; range: 202.9-421.3 days) was not
significantly different.
Key words: India, Publication delay, Time lag, Turn-
around time.
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Research manuscripts face a 12-18 month
time-lag from initial submission to final publication in a scientific
journal [1,2]. The time lag in publication may adversely impact the
careers of younger scientists, in addition to loss of information by
hindering timely incorporation of major advances into the policy and
practice of medicine.
We selected five Indian, clinical, biomedical journals
with the highest Impact Factors (Thompson Scientific) for the year 2008.
Print issues of Indian Pediatrics (IP), The Indian Journal of
Pediatrics (IJP), Neurology India (NI), The Indian Journal of Medical
Research (IJMR) and Journal of Postgraduate Medicine (JPGM)
were hand searched for the two year period from January 2007 to December
2008 to determine the article specific information including the dates of
submission, review, acceptance, and publication.
Of the journals studied, IP, IJP and IJMR were
monthly, and NI and JPGM were quarterly publications. We
found desired complete information for calculation of various time periods
only in IP and JPGM. Indian Journal of Medical Research only
provided time from submission to publication, and NI provided time
from acceptance to publication. Two issues of IJP did not provide
the relevant dates related to the editorial process. The various time
periods are detailed in Table I.
TABLE I
Time Taken for Publication of Original Papers (2007-2008)
Mean time |
Indian |
Indian J |
Indian J |
J Postgrad |
Neurol |
All |
(d) |
Pediatr |
Pediatr |
Med Res |
Med |
India |
journals |
|
(n=127) |
*(n=146) |
(n=188) |
(n=40) |
(n=60) |
|
Submission to Review |
83.5 |
- |
- |
107.6 |
- |
91.6 |
Review to
Acceptance |
169.9 |
- |
- |
36.7 |
- |
125.5 |
Submission to Acceptance |
253.6 |
211.1 |
- |
144.3 |
- |
215.6 |
Acceptance to Publication |
130.2 |
146.4 |
- |
58.6 |
73.2 |
107.7 |
Submission to Publication |
383.7 |
358.3 |
421.3 |
202.9 |
- |
350.0 |
Indian Pediatr: Indian Pediatrics; Indian J Pediatr: Indian Journal
of Pediatrics; Indian J Med Res: Indian Journal of Medical Research; J
Postgrad Med: Journal of Postgraduate Medicine; Neurol India:
Neurology India. |
Time from submission to review, which is the editor’s
first response, also called as ‘turn-around time’, is approximately 3
months (for accepted manuscripts) for both IP and JPGM. The
average time taken after the first review is around 4 months. After
acceptance, an additional around 3.5 months are taken for the article to
come in printed form. JPGM was the journal with the shortest time
from submission to print (202.9 days), but this was not significantly
different from the other journals.
Many authors have suggested turn around time as a
marker of timeliness of a journal’s review process [3-4]. This data for
accepted manuscripts was available only for IP (85 days) and
JPGM (107 days) and was comparable to previously reported median delay
of 2-4 months [3-5]. The use of the Internet makes it possible to
massively reduce the duration of time from first submission of a
manuscript to its eventual publication [1,2]. The effect of electronic
manuscript/email submission on timeliness was studied but no consistent
differences in the timeliness of publication were found between journal
with or without electronic manuscript submission.
The time from review to acceptance is dependant both on
the authors (a long time taken to revise the manuscript, not all comments
addressed, etc), and the journal office (decision on the revised
manuscript, speed of re-review, etc). It has previously also been reported
that waiting for authors’ responses to editorial feedback is the greatest
cause of delay in the editorial processes [6]. The average time (125 days)
in this study was much higher than previous reports [7].
The time from
acceptance to publication reflects both a delay at the editorial
office/publisher level and/or a backlog of large number of accepted
articles with the journal [4]. Thus, a more popular journal may have a
higher backlog of accepted articles, and consequently a longer time from
acceptance to publication [7,8]. This time was the least for JPGM
followed by NI, where many articles got published in the same month
in which they were accepted (7.2% and 21.6%, respectively). Journals with
e-publication ahead of print facility frequently obviate these delays, but
none of the journals studied had this service during the study period.
The time from manuscript submission to publication for
the five journals studied is not significantly different, but is much
higher than that for many international journals. There is an urgent need
to identify and address the factors responsible for this long time-lag.
Contributors: DM conceived the idea of the study.
Both authors contributed equally in designing the study, literature review
and drafting the paper. JB did the data collection and would be the
guarantor.
Funding: None.
Competing interests: None stated.
References
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3. Taylor and Francis Author Survey. Available
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