One of our research papers was published in its final form this morning. Since I had yet another conversation about the publishing industry at Congress yesterday and I keep track of dates, below are the behind-the-scenes details for this particular paper.

Submission: Aug 1, 2015

Minor revisions requested: Nov 6, 2015

Revision submitted: Nov 13, 2015

Minor revisions requested: Feb 10, 2016

Revision submitted: Feb 10, 2016

Accepted: Feb 13, 2016

Unedited article (uncorrected proofs) appears online: Feb 15, 2016

In Press version of the article appears online: Feb 23, 2016

Final version of the article – assigned to a journal issue/volume: June 1, 2016

 

I know (and have experienced) papers taking much longer (and much shorter) to publish. So, four words of caution are probably needed here:

  1. This n of 1 may or may not to be representative of this journal. I had other papers in this journal published under different time horizons.
  2. This paper is in a non Open Access (NOA) journal.Do no take this n of 1 to mean that Open Access (OA) publishers will necessarily publish a paper faster. I’ve had a paper accepted as is with a reputable OA publisher and the whole process took 2 months. I also have a paper with an OA publisher under review that is taking forever.
  3. It might be worthwhile to explore what the differences are beyond OA vs NOA. Reviewer turn-around time is a significant variable in this process.
  4. The paper was published in a journal concerned with education and specifically educational/learning technologies.