Skip to main page content
U.S. flag

An official website of the United States government

Dot gov

The .gov means it’s official.
Federal government websites often end in .gov or .mil. Before sharing sensitive information, make sure you’re on a federal government site.

Https

The site is secure.
The https:// ensures that you are connecting to the official website and that any information you provide is encrypted and transmitted securely.

Access keys NCBI Homepage MyNCBI Homepage Main Content Main Navigation
. 2022 Nov 3:10:e14331.
doi: 10.7717/peerj.14331. eCollection 2022.

Publication delays and associated factors in ophthalmology journals

Yinglin Yu #  1 , Wei Li #  2 , Chaoqun Xu  1 , Yuan Tan  1 , Weining Zhu  2 , Bowen Zhang  2 , Yingshi Zou  1 , Leyi Hu  1 , Guangming Jin  1 , Zhenzhen Liu  1
Affiliations

Publication delays and associated factors in ophthalmology journals

Yinglin Yu et al. PeerJ. .

Abstract

Introduction: This study aimed to evaluate the publication delays and correlative factors of peer-reviewed ophthalmology journals.

Methods: The ophthalmology journals listed in the Journal Citation Report 2020 were retrieved from the Web of Science database. The first original research article of each journal issue from January to December 2020 was extracted, and its submission, final revision, acceptance, and publication dates were obtained. Information on impact factors, advance online publication (AOP) status, open access (OA) rate and acceptance rate in 2020 was also collected. The correlations between publication delays and potential associated factors were analyzed.

Results: A total of 58 ophthalmology journals were included and information on 685 articles was collected. The median times from submission to acceptance, from acceptance to publication, and from submission to publication were 118.0 (IQR, 74.0-185.0) days, 31.0 (IQR, 15.0-64.0) days, and 161.0 (IQR, 111.0-232.0) days, respectively. A higher impact factor was correlated with shorter delays of acceptance and publication (P < 0.05). There was a positive correlation between acceptance rates and publication delays (r = 0.726, P = 0.007). Forty-seven (81.03%) journals provided AOP. There was no statistically significant difference for impact factors and publication delays between journal with and without AOP (all P > 0.05). No correlation between OA rate and publication delays or impact factors was detected (all P > 0.05).

Conclusions: Journals with higher impact factors and lower acceptance rates tend to have quicker publication processes. No significant associations were detected between publication delays and AOP or OA rate.

Keywords: Bibliometrics; Impact factor; Ophthalmology journals; Publication delays.

PubMed Disclaimer

Conflict of interest statement

The authors declare that they have no competing interests.

Figures

Figure 1
Figure 1. Scatterplots showing correlation statistics.
(A) Correlation between the impact factor and SA (r = −0.007, P = 0.962), (B) Correlation between the impact factor and AP (r = −0.352, P = 0.013), (C) Correlation between the impact factor and SP (r = −0.350, P = 0.014). (D) Correlation between SA and AP (r = −0.201, P = 0.178).
Figure 2
Figure 2. The impact factor in journals with and without an advance online publication (Epub) feature.
Figure 3
Figure 3. Publication delays (days) in journals with and without an advance online publication (Epub) feature.
Figure 4
Figure 4. Scatterplots showing correlation between OA rate and publication delays.
(A) Correlation between OA rate and SA (r = −0.019, P = 0.897), (B) Correlation between OA rate and AP (r = −0.112, P = 0.442), (C) Correlation between OA rate and SP (r = −0.198, P = 0.173). (D) Correlation between OA rate and the impact factor (r = −0.227, P = 0.087).
Figure 5
Figure 5. Scatterplots showing correlation between acceptance rate and publication delays.
(A) Correlation between acceptance rate and SA (r = 0.193, P = 0.549), (B) Correlation between acceptance rate and AP (r = 0.311, P = 0.301), (C) Correlation between acceptance rate and SP (r = 0.726, P = 0.007).
See this image and copyright information in PMC

Similar articles

See all similar articles

References

    1. Amat CB. Editorial and publication delay of papers submitted to 14 selected food research journals. Influence of online posting. Scientometrics. 2007;74(3):379–389. doi: 10.1007/s11192-007-1823-8. - DOI
    1. Baffy G, Burns MM, Hoffmann B, Ramani S, Sabharwal S, Borus JF, Pories S, Quan SF, Ingelfinger JR. Scientific authors in a changing world of scholarly communication: what does the future hold? The American Journal of Medicine. 2020;133(1):26–31. doi: 10.1016/j.amjmed.2019.07.028. - DOI - PubMed
    1. Bhattacharya R, Ellis LM. It is time to re-evaluate the peer review process for preclinical research. BioEssays. 2018;40(1):1700185. doi: 10.1002/bies.201700185. - DOI - PMC - PubMed
    1. Björk BC, Solomon D. The publishing delay in scholarly peer-reviewed journals. Journal of Informetrics. 2013;7(4):914–923. doi: 10.1016/j.joi.2013.09.001. - DOI
    1. Björk BC, Solomon D. Open access versus subscription journals: a comparison of scientific impact. BMC Medicine. 2012;10(1):73. doi: 10.1186/1741-7015-10-73. - DOI - PMC - PubMed

Publication types

Grants and funding

This work was supported by the National Natural Science Foundation of China (81873675). The funders had no role in study design, data collection and analysis, decision to publish, or preparation of the manuscript.

LinkOut - more resources