Delay in publications: new authors and editorial misconduct

An amendment by the Medical Council of India, in 2009, has introduced, as a criterion for early academic promotion, a compulsory minimum number of publications (1).

Given the many medical colleges in India, one would expect many research publications by medical college teachers (2) but this is not the case. However, with the MCI’s new requirement, a rush of articles will be submitted for publication. One reliable measure of the quality of a research publication in medical sciences is whether the publication is in a journal indexed by Pubmed (3) and such journals are likely to get an increase in submissions. There are several teachers in medical colleges who have fulfilled all criteria for promotion except that they do not have publications to their credit. The increase in submissions may result in delays in publication

Delays in publication may occur because of delays in collecting data, or in analysis, or for other reasons inherent to the type and nature of the research. In addition, delays in the editorial processing of a submitted article may discourage research. All those responsible for delays must take appropriate action.

Authors as well as editorial teams are responsible for the delay in publishing a submitted article. In one study, the time from acceptance to publication took 90 days (4). In another study, the longest delay in the editorial process was caused by the wait for authors to respond to reviewers’ or editors’ feedback (5). The authors took 67 (SD: 76) days to resubmit their paper following initial feedback, and a further 48 (SD: 79) days after it had been edited (5). New authors are likely to cause delays because they lack experience in writing for publication. They may target the wrong journal; fail to assess whether the information in their manuscript is in line with the editorial policy or the interests of readers of a given journal (6), all of which may result in the rejection of their manuscript. They may not get their article critically reviewed by an expert though this can improve the article; they may not even get it proofread. It is also essential to communicate clearly and speedily with reviewers, something which new authors may find difficult. Still, if new authors are under pressure to publish, as are medical college teachers awaiting their promotion, they will blame the editorial team for delays in publication.

The time taken between the date of submission and the first author contact, either for revision or decision, is reported to be about 60 days (4, 7). Editorial misconduct is another issue. The editorial process can sometimes exceed a year, a cause of great disappointment to authors. The time taken for peer review in local journals is sometimes comparable to review times in larger and more prestigious journals (8) with many more submissions. For the delay in publication, the justification that the journal is a larger and prestigious one is certainly not acceptable. It has been pointed out that undue delay in reaching decisions and communicating these to authors is editorial misconduct (9). Appropriate action should be initiated against editorial teams that delay processing publication.

Online submission of manuscripts is normally fast, relatively easy, and timely (7). Online editorial processing should also speed up publication time. Editors and their teams should devote time and resources to fulfil the responsibility bestowed on them. Some journals avoid delayed publication of certain articles by publishing accepted articles online, "epub ahead of print". The backlog will also be reduced with an increase in the number of journals and in the number of issues per volume (year) of the journal.

Conflict of interest:Delays in publications matter to both the authors, as they are looking for early academic promotion, which is possible if there is no delay in the publication of their articles submitted elsewhere.