There are many strategies to improve turnaround times for the peer-review process. This is critical because of the importance that the peer-review stage has in the academic publishing pipeline.
Consider the three most common results of the process and it’s easy to see why it matters. If a manuscript is positively reviewed by a peer reviewer, you’ll want to begin the publishing process as quickly as possible. If the manuscript needs further work prior to being published, then you need to get that feedback to the authors as quickly as possible. Also, if a manuscript has significant problems and cannot be published, you do not want to continue to use resources (time, first and foremost) on that manuscript. When the peer review process takes a long time, however, you will be stuck and unable to move forward with a manuscript—regardless of what peer review says.
As such, tackling the peer-review process can make a huge difference to your publishing process (not to mention your authors). Here, we’ll address why this matters and some strategies to improve this particular bottleneck.
Why do fast turnaround times matter?
Journal turnaround times matter to both authors and the journal. The reasons they matter, however, differ.
Publishing manuscripts are almost certainly your primary bread and butter. While your journal might have other sources of revenue (English editing services, for example), article processing charges are where most open access journals make their money. This means that the amount of money that your journal makes is tied to the number of manuscripts that you publish.
One might think, though, that this encourages journal publishers to abandon quality-control measures in order to publish more manuscripts. More manuscripts, after all, means more money. The problem with this reasoning is that reputations matter. News travels quickly in academic circles and if you develop a reputation as a “bad place to be published” it can be very difficult (if not impossible) to recover from that. An obsession with turnaround times without careful planning can ultimately cost you your reputation first, and then your journal in the end. Many publishers care about their reputation and understand that a faster turnaround time can be crucial to their success.
From an author’s perspective, their research being published and making it to the academic world is of critical importance. Many institutions expect their academics to publish research. Publishing research can be an avenue towards securing future career prospects. To get tenured at a university, many institutions require that academics publish research in their field. Not only that, but being the first to publish on a subject can have a major impact on an academic’s career and reputation. Speed matters (but not at the cost of reputation).
How to streamline processes like peer review
The peer-review process is, like it says on the tin, a process. But sometimes processes are inefficient and can be improved. You need to be careful though, as over-optimization can have the opposite effect to that which is sought. Too many efforts to “improve the process” can just result in wasted time, effort, and money. Finding a sweet spot for any given process is the best choice, and that isn’t always the same for everyone.
Here’s an example of how a process can vary. When we are talking about peer review, we need to consider the field. Generally speaking, the “hard sciences” have a much faster turnaround time for the peer review process than humanities. There are a few reasons for this. For example, the humanities generally has a much smaller pool of potential reviewers than sciences do. Another reason is that many fields of the humanities can have research that is highly interpretive. As a (very) simplistic example, while one plus one will always equal two, a novelist’s intentionality for a character can be very differently interpreted.
Understanding what is “expected” in any given field is the first stage of the streamlining process.
Working backwards with turnaround times
When looking at improving turnaround times, understanding how long is “expected” matters. If a field has a turnaround time of 16 weeks for peer review, asking authors to provide a review in one week is, both, unreasonable and likely to lead to potential reviewers turning down the invitation. But 15 weeks is reasonable. Maybe 14 weeks? Maybe less? This is where some trial and error can greatly improve turnaround times.
Communicating with your team and getting data is important. Is there a notable decrease in peer-reviewer acceptance (to review) at a certain amount of time? Is there a sweet spot that seems to work best for many authors? Do they indicate that a specific window of time is “too short” for a proper review? This kind of information is critical to your journal’s long-term success. Your team can let you know if they’ve gotten feedback to indicate that your timelines need to be adjusted. At the same time, being in contact directly with academics who can provide you with valuable insight on this question is critical.
As an example, your journal’s editorial board members can help you determine acceptable time-frames.
Improving turnaround times with publishing tools
Implementing rules and guidance for your team is one way to approach faster turnaround times, but it isn’t the only way. Another way to address turnaround times is by improving the systems that you use. When a manuscript is sent out for peer review, an editor might put it on a list or spreadsheet to keep track of it. While this might work for many people, it can also lead to confusion and delays. If an employee needs to take an extended window of time off from work, those notifications might be delayed because there is no openly available record. In cases like this, automated systems (journal management systems, for example) can greatly simplify handing work off to other team members. While people might have some initial concerns, using a journal management system doesn’t mean you have to compromise on quality.
These journal management systems (JAMS for example) are able to streamline the peer-review process to a few clicks, eliminating the wasted time spent bouncing between spreadsheets, emails, Word documents, and team members. Because these sorts of management systems can vary in price, many journals do not test their effectiveness. JAMS, as an example, offers a freemium service to help journals to be more successful without needing to spend money.
Peer review is important
The peer-review stage of the publishing process is one of the most important parts of the academic publishing pipeline. The selection of qualified peer reviewers, if of itself, can be very time consuming as well—so making sure that you’re choosing the right candidates is critical.
As an academic publishing company, making sure that you have the right tools to get your peer-review pipeline running effectively is very important. This can impact everything from your reputation to your bottom line. The longer it takes to do peer review, the more resources are wasted (and this means money). If you take longer to do peer review, this can affect your reputation. After all, authors want to publish as quickly as possible. Remember that there are many reasons to publish quickly and effectively. But there are also a lot of reasons why you need to make sure that you are ensuring that the work is accurate and properly reviewed.
Being known as a journal that does not care about producing good work can end your journal. Make sure that you’re using the right tools, like a journal management system, to get the job done right.