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Evidence-based decision-making is most effective with comprehensive access to scientific studies. If studies face significant publication delays or barriers, the useful information they contain may not reach decision-makers in a timely manner. This represents a potential problem for mission-oriented disciplines where access to the latest data is required to ensure effective actions are undertaken. We sought to analyse the severity of publication delay in conservation science--a field that requires urgent action to prevent the loss of biodiversity. We used the Conservation Evidence database to assess the length of publication delay (time from finishing data collection to publication) in the literature that tests the effectiveness of conservation interventions. From 7,447 peer-reviewed and non-peer-reviewed studies of conservation interventions published over eleven decades, we find that the raw mean publication delay was 3.2 years (±2SD = 0.1) and varied by conservation subject. A significantly shorter delay was observed for studies focused on Bee Conservation, Sustainable Aquaculture, Management of Captive Animals, Amphibian Conservation, and Control of Freshwater Invasive Species (Estimated Marginal Mean range from 1.4-1.9 years). Publication delay was significantly shorter for the non-peer-reviewed literature (Estimated Marginal Mean delay of 1.9 years ± 0.2) compared to the peer-reviewed literature (i.e., scientific journals; Estimated Marginal Mean delay of 3.0 years ± 0.1). We found publication delay has significantly increased over time (an increase of ~1.2 years from 1912 (1.4 years ± 0.2) to 2020 (2.6 years ± 0.1)), but this change was much weaker and non-significant post-2000s; we found no evidence for any decline. There was also no evidence that studies on more threatened species were subject to a shorter delay--indeed, the contrary was true for mammals, and to a lesser extent for birds. We suggest a range of possible ways in which scientists, funders, publishers, and practitioners can work together to reduce delays at each stage of the publication process. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Objective This study aimed to explore the relationship between publishing speeds and peer-reviewed journal bibliometric measures in ophthalmology. Methods Journal Citation Reports and Scopus Database were accessed for identification of journal bibliometric measures in ophthalmology. Twelve randomly selected articles from 2018 for all identified journals were studied. All outcome measures were extracted from the full text of articles and correlated with journal bibliometric measures. Statistical analysis was performed on measured parameters in comparison to a previous study. Main Outcomes and Measures Journal impact factor, Eigenfactor score, and CiteScore were correlated with time from submission or acceptance of manuscripts to online and print publication. The correlation between study design and publishing speeds was also assessed. Results A total of 55 journals were included for a total of 657 articles. Online publications were significantly faster than print publications for almost every journal (p

Objective: We aimed to compare the number of submissions until acceptance and the time to publication between articles co-authored and articles not co-authored by statisticians.Methods: We randomly selected 781 articles published in 2016 in 18 high impact factor journals of general internal medicine and primary care. For each article, we retrieved its date of submission to the journal and its first publication; we also contacted its corresponding author and asked about the number of submissions necessary from the first submission to a journal until acceptance and whether the article was co-authored by a statistician. After having excluded qualitative studies, we compared the articles co-authored with those not co-authored by statisticians in terms of number of submissions and submission-to-publication time, using negative binomial and Cox regressions, adjusted for intracluster correlations.Results: One hundred fifty-eight authors completed the questionnaire (20%); 136 articles with quantitative design were included in the study. Overall, 63 articles (46%) were co-authored by statisticians. There was no statistically significant difference in the number of submissions (statistician group: mean 2.1 (SD 1.1) versus 2.2 (SD 1.2), P value 0.87). By contrast, we found a statistically significant difference in the submission-to-publication time (statistician group: median 211 days [interquartile range (IQR) 171] versus 260 (IQR 144); hazard ratio 1.44 (95% CI 1.01-2.03), adjusted P value 0.04).Conclusions: Papers co-authored by statisticians have a shorter time to publication. We encourage researchers to closely involve statisticians in the design, conduct and statistical analysis of research, not only to ensure high standards of quality but also to speed up its publication. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

We aimed to assess publication speed of manuscripts submitted to general medical journals and to explore the link with various author, paper and journal characteristics. In this retrospective study of bibliometric data we retrieved 45 randomly selected papers published in 2016 from each of the highest impact factor journals of general internal medicine (n = 9) and primary care (n = 9). Only journals reporting submission and publication dates were included. The following data were extracted: first author (gender, place of affiliation, number of publications), paper (submission and publication dates, online publication, open access, number of authors, number of participants, study design, study results) and journal characteristics (impact factor, number of papers published). We computed for each paper the submission-to-acceptance, acceptance-to-publication and submission-to-publication times. We performed linear regression with random effects models to identify the associations with predictors, adjusting for intra-cluster correlations. A total of 781 papers were included. The overall median submission-to-acceptance time was 123 days (interquartile range 111, min 1, max 922), acceptance-to-publication time 68 days (interquartile range 88, min 2, max 802) and submission-to-publication time 224 days (interquartile range 156, min 24, max 1034). In multivariate analysis, online publication was strongly associated with reduced submission-to-publication time (difference: − 93 days, p value < 0.001). This study provides insight into the submission-to-acceptance, acceptance-to-publication and submission-to-publication times in general medical journals. Researchers interested in reducing publication delays should focus on journals with online publication. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]