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Journal Article•DOI•

The publishing delay in scholarly peer-reviewed journals

Bo-Christer Björk1, David J. Solomon2•
Hanken School of Economics1, Michigan State University2
01 Oct 2013-Journal of Informetrics (Elsevier BV)-Vol. 7, Iss: 4, pp 914-923
TL;DR: This chapter discusses the challenges of publishing in scholarly peer reviewed journals and some of the strategies used to address these challenges.
About: This article is published in Journal of Informetrics.The article was published on 2013-10-01 and is currently open access. It has received 267 citations till now. The article focuses on the topics: Citation index.
Citations
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Journal Article•DOI•
'Predatory' open access: a longitudinal study of article volumes and market characteristics.

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Cenyu Shen1, Bo-Christer Björk1•
Hanken School of Economics1
01 Oct 2015-BMC Medicine
TL;DR: Despite a total number of journals and publishing volumes comparable to respectable open access journals, the problem of predatory open access seems highly contained to just a few countries, where the academic evaluation practices strongly favor international publication, but without further quality checks.
Abstract: A negative consequence of the rapid growth of scholarly open access publishing funded by article processing charges is the emergence of publishers and journals with highly questionable marketing and peer review practices. These so-called predatory publishers are causing unfounded negative publicity for open access publishing in general. Reports about this branch of e-business have so far mainly concentrated on exposing lacking peer review and scandals involving publishers and journals. There is a lack of comprehensive studies about several aspects of this phenomenon, including extent and regional distribution. After an initial scan of all predatory publishers and journals included in the so-called Beall’s list, a sample of 613 journals was constructed using a stratified sampling method from the total of over 11,000 journals identified. Information about the subject field, country of publisher, article processing charge and article volumes published between 2010 and 2014 were manually collected from the journal websites. For a subset of journals, individual articles were sampled in order to study the country affiliation of authors and the publication delays. Over the studied period, predatory journals have rapidly increased their publication volumes from 53,000 in 2010 to an estimated 420,000 articles in 2014, published by around 8,000 active journals. Early on, publishers with more than 100 journals dominated the market, but since 2012 publishers in the 10–99 journal size category have captured the largest market share. The regional distribution of both the publisher’s country and authorship is highly skewed, in particular Asia and Africa contributed three quarters of authors. Authors paid an average article processing charge of 178 USD per article for articles typically published within 2 to 3 months of submission. Despite a total number of journals and publishing volumes comparable to respectable (indexed by the Directory of Open Access Journals) open access journals, the problem of predatory open access seems highly contained to just a few countries, where the academic evaluation practices strongly favor international publication, but without further quality checks.

568 citations

Journal Article•DOI•
Empirical Studies on Usability of mHealth Apps: A Systematic Literature Review

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Belén Cruz Zapata1, José Luis Fernández-Alemán1, Ali Idri, Ambrosio Toval1•
University of Murcia1
01 Feb 2015-Journal of Medical Systems
TL;DR: The results show that the empirical evaluation methods employed as regards usability could be improved by the adoption of automated mechanisms, and the evaluation processes should also be revised to combine more than one method.
Abstract: The release of smartphones and tablets, which offer more advanced communication and computing capabilities, has led to the strong emergence of mHealth on the market. mHealth systems are being used to improve patients' lives and their health, in addition to facilitating communication between doctors and patients. Researchers are now proposing mHealth applications for many health conditions such as dementia, autism, dysarthria, Parkinson's disease, and so on. Usability becomes a key factor in the adoption of these applications, which are often used by people who have problems when using mobile devices and who have a limited experience of technology. The aim of this paper is to investigate the empirical usability evaluation processes described in a total of 22 selected studies related to mHealth applications by means of a Systematic Literature Review. Our results show that the empirical evaluation methods employed as regards usability could be improved by the adoption of automated mechanisms. The evaluation processes should also be revised to combine more than one method. This paper will help researchers and developers to create more usable applications. Our study demonstrates the importance of adapting health applications to users' need.

415 citations

Journal Article•DOI•
Prominent but Less Productive: The Impact of Interdisciplinarity on Scientists’ Research*

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Erin Leahey1, Christine M. Beckman2, Taryn L. Stanko3•
University of Arizona1, University of Maryland, College Park2, California Polytechnic State University3
01 Mar 2017-Administrative Science Quarterly
TL;DR: Using an innovative measure of interdisciplinary research that considers the similarity of the disciplines spanned, this work document both penalties and benefits associated with it and shows that it is a high-risk, high-reward endeavor, one that partly depends on field-level interdisciplinarity.
Abstract: Federal agencies and universities in the U.S. promote interdisciplinary research because it presumably spurs transformative, innovative science. Using data on almost 900 research-center–based scientists and their 32,000 published articles, along with a set of unpublished papers, we assess whether such research is indeed beneficial and whether costs accompany the potential benefits. Existing research highlights this tension: whereas the innovation literature suggests that spanning disciplines is beneficial because it allows scientists to see connections across fields, the categories literature suggests that spanning disciplines is penalized because the resulting research may be lower quality or confusing to place. To investigate this, we empirically distinguish production and reception effects and highlight a new production penalty: lower productivity, which may be attributable to cognitive and collaborative challenges associated with interdisciplinary research and/or hurdles in the review process. Using a...

234 citations

Cites methods from "The publishing delay in scholarly p..."

  • ...When modeling productivity, we controlled for average turnaround time for journals in the field, obtained from Bjork and Solomon (2013)....

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Journal Article•DOI•
The evolving role of preprints in the dissemination of COVID-19 research and their impact on the science communication landscape.

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Nicholas Fraser1, Liam Brierley2, Gautam Dey, Jessica K. Polka, Máté Pálfy3, Federico Nanni4, Jonathon Alexis Coates5 •
University of Kiel1, University of Liverpool2, Company of Biologists3, The Turing Institute4, University of Cambridge5
02 Apr 2021-PLOS Biology
TL;DR: The data provide evidence for increased scientific and public engagement with preprints related to COVID-19, as well as changes in the use of preprints by journalists and policymakers, and for changes in preprinting and publishing behaviour.
Abstract: The world continues to face a life-threatening viral pandemic. The virus underlying the Coronavirus Disease 2019 (COVID-19), Severe Acute Respiratory Syndrome Coronavirus 2 (SARS-CoV-2), has caused over 98 million confirmed cases and 2.2 million deaths since January 2020. Although the most recent respiratory viral pandemic swept the globe only a decade ago, the way science operates and responds to current events has experienced a cultural shift in the interim. The scientific community has responded rapidly to the COVID-19 pandemic, releasing over 125,000 COVID-19-related scientific articles within 10 months of the first confirmed case, of which more than 30,000 were hosted by preprint servers. We focused our analysis on bioRxiv and medRxiv, 2 growing preprint servers for biomedical research, investigating the attributes of COVID-19 preprints, their access and usage rates, as well as characteristics of their propagation on online platforms. Our data provide evidence for increased scientific and public engagement with preprints related to COVID-19 (COVID-19 preprints are accessed more, cited more, and shared more on various online platforms than non-COVID-19 preprints), as well as changes in the use of preprints by journalists and policymakers. We also find evidence for changes in preprinting and publishing behaviour: COVID-19 preprints are shorter and reviewed faster. Our results highlight the unprecedented role of preprints and preprint servers in the dissemination of COVID-19 science and the impact of the pandemic on the scientific communication landscape.

217 citations

Cites background from "The publishing delay in scholarly p..."

  • ...The entire publishing timeline from submission to acceptance is estimated to take approximately 6 months in the life sciences [8,9]; the median time between the date a preprint is posted and the date on which the first DOI of a journal article is registered is 166 days in the life sciences [8]....

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Journal Article•DOI•
Duration and quality of the peer review process: the author's perspective.

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Janine Huisman1, Jeroen Smits•
Radboud University Nijmegen1
09 Mar 2017-Scientometrics
TL;DR: Qualitative information provided by the authors indicates that editors can enhance author satisfaction by taking an independent position vis-à-vis reviewers and by communicating well with authors.
Abstract: To gain insight into the duration and quality of the scientific peer review process, we analyzed data from 3500 review experiences submitted by authors to the SciRev.sc website. Aspects studied are duration of the first review round, total review duration, immediate rejection time, the number, quality, and difficulty of referee reports, the time it takes authors to revise and resubmit their manuscript, and overall quality of the experience. We find clear differences in these aspects between scientific fields, with Medicine, Public health, and Natural sciences showing the shortest durations and Mathematics and Computer sciences, Social sciences, Economics and Business, and Humanities the longest. One-third of journals take more than 2 weeks for an immediate (desk) rejection and one sixth even more than 4 weeks. This suggests that besides the time reviewers take, inefficient editorial processes also play an important role. As might be expected, shorter peer review processes and those of accepted papers are rated more positively by authors. More surprising is that peer review processes in the fields linked to long processes are rated highest and those in the fields linked to short processes lowest. Hence authors’ satisfaction is apparently influenced by their expectations regarding what is common in their field. Qualitative information provided by the authors indicates that editors can enhance author satisfaction by taking an independent position vis-a-vis reviewers and by communicating well with authors.

147 citations

Cites background from "The publishing delay in scholarly p..."

  • ...A major cause for this is that authors are required to revise their manuscripts more often and more extensively (Ellison 2002a, 2002b; Azar 2007; Cherkashin et al. 2009; Björk and Solomon 2013)....

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  • ...A major cause for this is that authors are required to revise their manuscripts more often and more extensively (Ellison 2002a, 2002b; Azar 2007; Cherkashin et al. 2009; Björk and Solomon 2013)....

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References
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Journal Article•DOI•
Open access: a revolution in scientific publication? Or just a minor amendment of accessibility?

[...]

Georg Franck1•
Vienna University of Technology1
15 Nov 2012-Cell Cycle
TL;DR: The exchange of information for attention is a somewhat peculiar market, since it seems much more natural to sell the information one has produced laboriously for money.
Abstract: Scientific communication is a misnomer. The process of scientific publication is much less a forum where information is exchanged for information than a market where information is exchanged for attention. Nevertheless, the exchange of information for attention is a somewhat peculiar market, since it seems much more natural to sell the information one has produced laboriously for money. Why publish a discovery, why share it with other researchers when knowledge is power?

1,172 citations

"The publishing delay in scholarly p..." refers background in this paper

  • ...16 Piron, Robert (2001) They Have the World on a Queue, Challenge, 2001 44(5) 95‐101....

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  • ...Suber, P. (2012). Open Access. MIT Press. 230p. Torgerson D. J., Adamson J., Cockayne S, Dumville J., PetherickBritish E. (2005) Submission to multiple journals: a method of reducing time to publication? BMJ, 330, 305–307....

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  • ...16 Piron, Robert (2001) They Have the World on a Queue, Challenge, 2001 44(5) 95‐101. Posner, Richard (2006) Law Reviews, Washburn Law Review, 46 (1) http://washburnlaw....

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  • ...The solution proposed to the limited dissemination is Open Access (OA), which can be achieved either through publishing in open access journals (“gold OA”) or through author’s uploading manuscript versions of their articles (“green OA”) to subject or institutional repositories (Suber 2012)....

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  • ...The solution proposed to the limited dissemination is Open Access (OA), which can be achieved either through publishing in open access journals (“gold OA”) or through author’s uploading manuscript versions of their articles (“green OA”) to subject or institutional repositories (Suber 2012). OA journals have increased their output by 20‐30% per year for over a decade and now publish around 12 % of all peer reviewed articles (Laakso and Björk 2012). The open accessibility can be achieved via a number of business models of which the publishing fee variant is rapidly increasing its market share. The critique of the peer review process has led to a number of experiments with alternative models. The web medium lends itself to different forms of open review, where manuscripts can be “published” prior to review or with minimal review and subsequently evaluated by reader comments and elevated to full article status via post publication feedback. (Björk 2011). Open review was tried and deemed a failure in a well‐known experiment by Nature (2006). More successful than open review experiments is an alternative peer review model practiced by an increasing number of OA “megajournals” in the wake of PLoS ONE, which currently publishes around 20,000 articles per year....

    [...]

Journal Article•DOI•
The Slowdown of the Economics Publishing Process

[...]

Glenn Ellison1•
Massachusetts Institute of Technology1
01 Oct 2002-Journal of Political Economy
TL;DR: In this paper, the authors examined the connection between changes in the profession and the publication process of top economics journals and found that a substantial part of the slowdown is due to journals' requiring more extensive revisions.
Abstract: Over the last three decades there has been a dramatic slowdown of the publication process at top economics journals. A substantial part is due to journals' requiring more extensive revisions. Various explanations are considered: democratization of the review process, increases in the complexity of papers, growth of the profession, and cost and benefit arguments. Changes in the profession are examined using time‐series data. Connections between these changes and the slowdown are examined using paper‐level data. There is evidence for some explanations, but most of the slowdown remains unexplained. Changes may reflect evolving social norms.

320 citations

Journal Article•DOI•
Anatomy of open access publishing: a study of longitudinal development and internal structure

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Mikael Laakso1, Bo-Christer Björk1•
Hanken School of Economics1
22 Oct 2012-BMC Medicine
TL;DR: OA journal publishing is disrupting the dominant subscription-based model of scientific publishing, having rapidly grown in relative annual share of published journal articles during the last decade.
Abstract: Open access (OA) is a revolutionary way of providing access to the scholarly journal literature made possible by the Internet. The primary aim of this study was to measure the volume of scientific articles published in full immediate OA journals from 2000 to 2011, while observing longitudinal internal shifts in the structure of OA publishing concerning revenue models, publisher types and relative distribution among scientific disciplines. The secondary aim was to measure the share of OA articles of all journal articles, including articles made OA by publishers with a delay and individual author-paid OA articles in subscription journals (hybrid OA), as these subsets of OA publishing have mostly been ignored in previous studies. Stratified random sampling of journals in the Directory of Open Access Journals (n = 787) was performed. The annual publication volumes spanning 2000 to 2011 were retrieved from major publication indexes and through manual data collection. An estimated 340,000 articles were published by 6,713 full immediate OA journals during 2011. OA journals requiring article-processing charges have become increasingly common, publishing 166,700 articles in 2011 (49% of all OA articles). This growth is related to the growth of commercial publishers, who, despite only a marginal presence a decade ago, have grown to become key actors on the OA scene, responsible for 120,000 of the articles published in 2011. Publication volume has grown within all major scientific disciplines, however, biomedicine has seen a particularly rapid 16-fold growth between 2000 (7,400 articles) and 2011 (120,900 articles). Over the past decade, OA journal publishing has steadily increased its relative share of all scholarly journal articles by about 1% annually. Approximately 17% of the 1.66 million articles published during 2011 and indexed in the most comprehensive article-level index of scholarly articles (Scopus) are available OA through journal publishers, most articles immediately (12%) but some within 12 months of publication (5%). OA journal publishing is disrupting the dominant subscription-based model of scientific publishing, having rapidly grown in relative annual share of published journal articles during the last decade.

299 citations

Journal Article•DOI•
Publication fees in open access publishing: sources of funding and factors influencing choice of journal

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David J. Solomon1, Bo-Christer Björk2•
Michigan State University1, Hanken School of Economics2
01 Jan 2012-Journal of the Association for Information Science and Technology
TL;DR: Fit, quality, and speed of publication were the most important factors in the authors' choice of a journal and OA was less important but a significant factor for many authors in their choice ofA journal to publish.
Abstract: Open access (OA) journals distribute their content at no charge and use other means of funding the publication process. Publication fees or article-processing charges (APC)s have become the predominant means for funding professional OA publishing. We surveyed 1,038 authors who recently published articles in 74 OA journals that charge APCs stratified into seven discipline categories. Authors were asked about the source of funding for the APC, factors influencing their choice of a journal and past history publishing in OA and subscription journals. Additional information about the journal and the authors' country were obtained from the journal website. A total of 429 (41%) authors from 69 journals completed the survey. There were large differences in the source of funding among disciplines. Journals with impact factors charged higher APCs as did journals from disciplines where grant funding is plentiful. Fit, quality, and speed of publication were the most important factors in the authors' choice of a journal. OA was less important but a significant factor for many authors in their choice of a journal to publish. These findings are consistent with other research on OA publishing and suggest that OA publishing funded through APCs is likely to continue to grow.

197 citations

Journal Article•DOI•
A longitudinal comparison of citation rates and growth among open access journals

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David J. Solomon1, Mikael Laakso2, Bo-Christer Björk2•
Michigan State University1, Hanken School of Economics2
01 Jul 2013-Journal of Informetrics
TL;DR: Citation averages of OA journals funded by other means continue to lag well behind OA Journals funded by APCs and subscription journals, and it is hypothesized this is less an issue of quality than due to the fact that such journals are commonly published in languages other than English and tend to be located outside the four major publishing countries.

100 citations

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Publication fees in open access publishing: sources of funding and factors influencing choice of journal

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11 Feb 2016-Nature
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01 Apr 2006-Journal of the Royal Society of Medicine
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Q1. What are the contributions in this paper?

  Usingastratifiedrandomsamplewestudiedaveragepublishingdelaysin2700 paperspublishedin135journalssampledfromtheScopuscitationindex. The shortestoveralldelaysoccurinsciencetechnologyandmedical ( STM ) fieldsand thelongestinsocialscience, arts/humanitiesandbusiness/economics.