Journal
QUANTITATIVE SCIENCE STUDIES
Volume 1, Issue 3, Pages 1056-1067Publisher
MIT PRESS
DOI: 10.1162/qss_a_00076
Keywords
COVID-19; peer review; publication delay; publication process; publication time; scientific publishing
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In times of public crises, including the current COVID-19 pandemic, rapid dissemination of relevant scientific knowledge is of paramount importance. The duration of scholarly journals' publication process is one of the main factors that may hinder quick delivery of new information. Following initiatives of medical journals to accelerate their publication process, this study assesses whether medical journals have managed to speed up their publication process for coronavirus-related articles. It studies the duration of 14 medical journals' publication processes both during and prior to the current pandemic. Assessing 669 articles, the study concludes that medical journals have indeed strongly accelerated their publication process for coronavirus-related articles since the outbreak of the pandemic: The time between submission and publication has decreased on average by 49%. The largest decrease in number of days between submission and publication of articles was due to a decrease in time required for peer review. For articles not related to COVID-19, no acceleration of the publication process is found. While the acceleration of the publication process is laudable from the perspective of quick information dissemination, it also may raise concerns relating to the quality of the peer review process and of the resulting publications.
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