Carlos Benito Amat

Editorial and publication delay of papers submitted to 14 selected Food Research journals. Influence of online posting

IntroductionPublication delay, chronological distance between completion of a scientific work and distribution of its achievements as a peer reviewed paper, is a negative phenomenon in scientific information dissemination. It can be further subdivided in successive stages corresponding to the peer review process and the technical preparation of accepted manuscripts. Formal online posting in electronic versions of journals has been considered as a shortening of the process.ObjectivesTo determine publication delay in a group of leading Food Research journals, as well as factors affecting this lag and also to compute the effect of formal online posting on the distribution of papers in electronic form. Secondary objective is also to study the possible effect of informal posting of papers through some repositories on the publication delay in the field.Methods14 Food Research journals were selected and 4836 papers published in 2004 were examined. Dates of first submission, submission of revised manuscripts, acceptation, online posting and final publication were recorded for each paper.AnalysisData collected were analyzed using SPSS and SigmaPlot. Parametric correlation between some variables was determined and ANOVA was performed with BMDP package for significance analysis of differences among journals.Resultsaverage publication delay of papers submitted to the set of selected journals is 348 ± 104 days, with European Food Research and Technology and Journal of Agricultural and Food Chemistry showing the shortest delays. Total delay strongly depends on the peer review process. On average, 85.75% of manuscripts are corrected prior to their acceptance by journals. Online posting of papers prior to their print publication reduces total delay in about 29%. On average, a paper is posted online 260 days after its submission to the set of journals.ConclusionsPublication delay of papers is strongly dependent on the peer review process, which affects most of the manuscripts in the Food Research field. Advanced online publication through formal posting at the editor’s sites only slightly reduces the time between reception and final publication of papers.

Editorial delay of food research papers is influenced by authors’ experience but not by country of origin of the manuscripts

Editorial delay, the time between submission and acceptance of scientific manuscripts, was investigated for a set of 4,540 papers published in 13 leading food research journals. Groups of accelerated papers were defined as those that fell in the lower quartile of the distribution of the editorial delay for the journals investigated. Delayed papers are those in the upper quartile of the distribution. Editorial stage is related to the peer review process and two variables were investigated in search of any bias in editorial review that could influence publication delay: countries of origin of the manuscript and authors’ previous publishing experience in the same journal. A ranking of countries was established based on contributions to the leading food research journals in the period 1999–2004 and four categories comprising heavy, medium, light and occasional country producers was established. Chi square tests show significant differences in country provenance of manuscripts only for one journal. The results for influence on editorial delay of cross-national research and international collaboration, conducted by means of the Fisher statistic test, were similar. A two-tailed Student’s t test shows significant differences (p<0.05) in the distribution of experienced and novel authors across the delayed and accelerated groups of papers. Although these results are time and discipline limited, it can be concluded that authors’ publishing experience causes a faster review and acceptance of their papers and that neither country of provenance nor cross-national research influence the time involved in editorial acceptance of the papers.

Median age difference of references as indicator of information update of research groups: A case study in Spanish food research

Median age difference (D) is obtained by subtracting median value of the age distribution of references of a scientific paper from citing half life of the journal that published it. Such an indicator can be related to the state of knowledge of research groups and can show some interesting properties: 1) it must be related with the incorporation of information pieces in an informal way, say the rate of self-citations; 2) it must follow the natural tendency of the groups towards a progressively updated state of knowledge, and 3) more productive groups will tend to use more recent information. These natural hypotheses have been investigated using a medium sized Spanish institution devoted to Food Research as a case study. Scientific output comprised 439 papers published in SCI journals between 1999 and 2004 by 16 research teams. Their 14,617 references were analyzed. Variables studied were number of published papers by every team, number of authors per paper, number of references per paper, type of documents cited, self citation rate and chronological range of reference lists.Number of authors per paper ranged between 1 and 15. The most frequent value (N = 128) was 3 authors. Average number of authors per paper is 4.03 (SD = 1.74). Mean number of references per paper (including review papers) is 33.3 (SD= 17.39) with slight differences between the groups. Mean self-citation rate was 13.72 % (SD = 11.7). The greatest chronological range was 119 years; half of all ranges was 30 years and the general mean for this variable was 33.34 years (SD = 16.34). D values were associated with self-citation rate and a negative relationship between D and chronological range of references was also found. Nevertheless, correlation figures were too small to reach sound conclusions about the effect of these variables. Number of references per paper, number of contributing authors and number of papers published by each team were not associated with D.D values can discriminate between groups managing updated information and delayed research teams. Publication delay affects D figures. Discontinuity of research lines, heterogeneity of research fields and the short time lapse studied could have some influence on the results of the study. It is suggested that a great coverage is needed to evaluate properly D figures as indicators of information update of research groups.

Número de autores y colaboración institucional en los artículos originales de investigación biomédica española. Evolución de los valores básicos de referencia en el período 1990-2009

El número de autores de las publicaciones cientı́ficas y técnicas aumenta de forma continuada: el promedio casi se ha duplicado, pasando de 1,9 a 3,5 entre 1955 y 2000. El aumento es mayor en las ciencias sociales y se produce también en áreas donde las investigaciones no dependen del equipamiento o del tamaño de los laboratorios. Estudios similares de éste y otros equipos revelan estas mismas tendencias, evidenciadas también en la investigación médica. La creciente cooperación entre cientı́ficos favorece sus objetivos epistémicos: les permite plantear objetivos de investigación que no pueden abordar en solitario, porque facilita el manejo de recursos más abundantes y la combinación de conocimientos dispares; además, previene contra el hecho de que resultados de importancia pasen desapercibidos o se olviden; también juega un papel muy importante en la formación de jóvenes investigadores y es responsable de la rapidez con que avanza el conocimiento. El número de autores de los trabajos cientı́ficos se asocia a una mayor productividad de los grupos, a una mayor frecuencia de citas de los artı́culos que publican y a la obtención de más financiación. El fomento de la investigación cooperativa en medicina en España resulta naturalmente en la publicación de trabajos de autores múltiples. Sin embargo, al intentar traducir la autorı́a de los trabajos en mérito cientı́fico han surgido contradicciones y paradojas. El conflicto se plantea como sigue: ni el crédito ni la