Publication Speed in Colombian Scientific Journals:

Influence on Research Productivity and Quality

Authors

DOI:

https://doi.org/10.17533/udea.rib.v48n3e356753

Keywords:

Scientific journals, speed of publication, peer review, editorial processes, megajournals, scientific impact indicators

Abstract

This study examines the publication time of articles in Colombian academic journals and its impact on academic and professional life, as well as on the productivity of researchers. The importance of publication speed in the choice of journals is analyzed, addressing the presence of megajournals and predatory journals. The methodology includes the collection and purification of data from SciELO Colombia, along with statistical tests such as Spearman's Rho, box plot and Kolmogorov-Smirnov in RStudio. The results reveal a non-normal distribution of publication times, with significant variations between areas and journals. An increase in publication times is observed over the years, associated with the increase in research production. The correlation between publication times and scientific impact indicators is highlighted, although discrepancies with previous studies are pointed out. It is concluded that Colombian publishers face challenges in managing publication times, requiring attention and possible solutions such as the optimization of editorial processes and the promotion of open access journals. Limitations of the study are recognized, such as the lack of complete data and the scarcity of research on the topic in the country.

|Abstract
= 135 veces | PDF (ESPAÑOL (ESPAÑA))
= 57 veces| | EPUB (ESPAÑOL (ESPAÑA))
= 4 veces|

Downloads

Download data is not yet available.

Author Biographies

Fabian Adames Papa, Universidad Surcolombiana

Magíster en Economía por la Universidad de Manizales. Matemático por la Universidad Surcolombiana. Jefe del Programa de Economía de la Universidad Surcolombiana, Neiva, Colombia.

María Alejandra Trujillo Cardoso, Universidad Surcolombiana

Economista e integrante del Semillero de Investigación en Estudios Socioeconómicos Surcolombianos (SIESS) de la Universidad Surcolombiana, Neiva, Colombia.

References

Aguado-López, Eduardo; Becerril-García, Arianna (2021). El tiempo de la revisión por pares: ¿Obstáculo a la comunicación científica? Interciencia, 46(2), 56-64. https://www.interciencia.net/wp-content/uploads/2021/03/01_6788_A_Aguado_v46n2_9.pdf

Argilés-Bosch, Josep; Ravenda, Diego; Garcia-Blandon, Josep (2023). Empirical analysis of factors influencing delay in article acceptance in accounting journals. Learned Publishing, 36(4), 517-532. https://doi.org/10.1002/leap.1564

Behera, Bikram; Radhakrishnan, Rakesh; Mohanty, Chitta; Bellapukonda, Snigdha (2021). COVID-19 pandemic and its impact on peer review speed of anesthesiology journals: An observational study. Journal of Anaesthesiology Clinical Pharmacology, 37(1), 57-62. https://doi.org/10.4103/joacp.joacp_652_20

Bilalli, Besim; Munir, Rana; Abelló, Alberto (2021). A framework for assessing the peer review duration of journals: Case study in computer science. Scientometrics, 126, 545-563. https://doi.org/10.1007/s11192-020-03742-9

Björk, Bo-Christer (2019). Acceptance rates of scholarly peer-reviewed journals: A literature survey. Profesional de la Información, 28(4). https://doi.org/10.3145/epi.2019.jul.07

Björk, Bo-Christer; Solomon, David (2013). The publishing delay in scholarly peer-reviewed journals. Journal of Informetrics, 7(4), 914-923. https://doi.org/10.1016/j.joi.2013.09.001

Bourne, Philip; Polka, Jessica; Vale, Ronald; Kiley, Robert (2017). Ten simple rules to consider regarding preprint submission. PLOS Computational Biology, 13(5), e1005473. https://doi.org/10.1371/journal.pcbi.1005473

Chaleplioglou, Artemis; Koulouris, Alexandros (2023). Preprint paper platforms in the academic scholarly communication environment. Journal of Librarianship and Information Science, 55(1), 43-56. https://doi.org/10.1177/09610006211058908

Consejo Nacional de Ciencia y Tecnología (2019). Sistema de clasificación de revistas mexicanas de ciencia y tecnología. https://www.revistascytconacyt.mx/

Coolidge, Harold; Lord, Robert (1971). Archibald Cary Coolidge: Life and letters. Books for Libraries Press.

Delgado López-Cózar, Emilio (2017). Evaluar revistas científicas: un afán con mucho presente y pasado e incierto futuro. En Revistas científicas: situación actual y retos de futuro (pp. 73-103). https://dialnet.unirioja.es/servlet/articulo?codigo=6141777

Himmelstein, Daniel (2016, febrero 10). The history of publishing delay. dhimmel.com. https://blog.dhimmel.com/history-of-delays/

Huisman, Janine; Smits, Jeroen (2017). Duration and quality of the peer review process: The author’s perspective. Scientometrics, 113(1), 633-650. https://doi.org/10.1007/s11192-017-2310-5

Jiménez-Yañez, César; Colmenares-Díaz, Zicri (2022). ¿Qué se debe saber sobre las revistas depredadoras y piratas? Culturales, 10(1), 1-8. https://doi.org/10.22234/recu.20221001.ed001

Johansson, Michael; Reich, Nicholas; Meyers, Lauren; Lipsitch, Marc (2018). Preprints: An underutilized mechanism to accelerate outbreak science. PLOS Medicine, 15(4), e1002549. https://doi.org/10.1371/journal.pmed.1002549

Kumar, Malhar (2014). Review of the ethics and etiquettes of time management of manuscript peer review. Journal of Academic Ethics, 12, 333-346. https://doi.org/10.1007/s10805-014-9220-4

Larivière, V., Haustein, S., & Mongeon, P. (2015). The oligopoly of academic publishers in the digital era. PLOS ONE, 10(6), e0127502. https://doi.org/10.1371/journal.pone.0127502

Lee, Younsuk; Kim, KyoungOk; Lee, Yujin (2017). Publication delay of Korean medical journals. Journal of Korean Medical Science, 32(8), 1235-1242. https://doi.org/10.3346/jkms.2017.32.8.1235

Maggio, Lauren; Bynum, William; Schreiber-Gregory, Deanna; Durning, Steven; Artino, Anthony Jr. (2020). When will I get my paper back? A replication study of publication timelines for health professions education research. Perspectives on Medical Education, 9(3), 139-146. https://doi.org/10.1007/s40037-020-00576-2

Marco del Pont-Lalli, Raúl; Martínez-Navarro, Raúl (2022). Los largos tiempos de las publicaciones académicas incluidas en SciELO México. Revista Interamericana de Bibliotecología, 45(2), e344044. https://doi.org/10.17533/udea.rib.v45n2e344044

Miller, Alan; Taylor, Shannon; Bedeian, Arthur (2011). Publish or perish: Academic life as management faculty live it. Career Development International, 16(5), 422-445. https://doi.org/10.1108/13620431111167751

Mrowinski, M., Fronczak, A., Fronczak, P., Nedic, O., & Dekanski, A. (2020). The hurdles of academic publishing from the perspective of journal editors: A case study. Scientometrics, 125, 115-133. https://doi.org/10.1007/s11192-020-03619-x

Nature (2020). Coronavirus: Everyone wins when patents are pooled. Nature, 581(240-241). https://doi.org/10.1038/d41586-020-01441-2

Oxford Reference (2023). Publish or perish. Oxford Reference. https://www.oxfordreference.com/display/10.1093/acref/9780198845621.001.0001

Oyola-García, Alfredo; Chanduvi-Puicón, Willer; Quispe-Llanzo, Melisa (2015). Tiempos de demora para la publicación de artículos en una revista científica peruana. Anales de la Facultad de Medicina, 76(4), 467-468. http://www.scielo.org.pe/scielo.php?script=sci_arttext&pid=S1025-55832015000500023

Panda, Saumya (2020). Article processing speed in the Indian Journal of Dermatology, Venereology and Leprology. Indian Journal of Dermatology, Venereology and Leprology, 86(5), 471-474. https://doi.org/10.4103/ijdvl.ijdvl_1080_20

Redalyc (2023). Sistema de Información Científica Redalyc. https://www.redalyc.org/pais.oa?id=30&tipo=indicadores

Rigby, John; Cox, Deborah; Julian, Kigongo (2018). Journal peer review: A bar or bridge? An analysis of a paper’s revision history and turnaround time, and the effect on citation. Scientometrics, 114(3), 1087-1105. https://doi.org/10.1007/s11192-017-2630-5

SCImago Journal Rank (SJR). (2023). SJR country rank. https://www.scimagojr.com/countryrank.php?year=2021

Sebo, Paul (2022). Acceptance and publication times in high-impact general medical journals. Internal and Emergency Medicine, 17, 2441-2446. https://doi.org/10.1007/s11739-022-03119-1

Segarra-Saavedra, Jesús; Hidalgo-Marí, Tatiana; Tur-Viñes, Victoria (2023). Editorial time management: Peer review dates and other key dates of Spanish Communication journals. Learned Publishing, 36(4), 533-542. https://doi.org/10.1002/leap.1569

Solomon, David; Björk, Bo-Christer (2012). Publication fees in open access publishing: Sources of funding and factors influencing choice of journal. Journal of the American Society for Information Science and Technology, 63(1), 98-107. https://doi.org/10.1002/asi.21660

Spezi, Valerie; Wakeling, Simon; Pinfield, Stephen; Creaser, Claire; Fry, Jenny; Willett, Peter (2017). Open-access mega-journals: The future of scholarly communication or academic dumping ground? A review. Journal of Documentation, 73(2), 263-268. https://doi.org/10.1108/JD-06-2016-0082

Teixeira da Silva, Jaime; Dobránszki, Judit (2017). Excessively long editorial decisions and excessively long publication times by journals: Causes, risks, consequences, and proposed solutions. Publishing Research Quarterly, 33, 101-108. https://doi.org/10.1007/s12109-016-9489-9

Yu, Y., Li, W., Xu, C., Tan, Y., Zhu, W., Zhang, B., & Liu, Z. (2022). Publication delays and associated factors in ophthalmology journals. PeerJ, 10, e14331. https://doi.org/10.7717/peerj.14331

Zabala, Jon; González-Albo, Borja; García-García, Ana; Garrido-Domínguez, Aurora; Vidal-Liy, José; Álvarez-Díez, Luis; Hernando-Tundidor, Soledad; Mostazo-Fernández, Yara; Abejón, Teresa (2023). Evaluation and publication delay in Ibero-American scientific journals. Learned Publishing, 36(2), 205–216. https://doi.org/10.1002/leap.1497

Zhang, Zhi-Qiang (2006). The making of a mega-journal in taxonomy. Zootaxa, 1385(1), 67-68. https://doi.org/10.11646/zootaxa.1385.1.5

Published

2025-10-16

How to Cite

Adames Papa, F., & Trujillo Cardoso, M. A. (2025). Publication Speed in Colombian Scientific Journals: : Influence on Research Productivity and Quality. Revista Interamericana De Bibliotecología, 48(3). https://doi.org/10.17533/udea.rib.v48n3e356753

Issue

Section

Investigaciones