Skip to main content

Accelerated acceptance time for preprint submissions: a comparative analysis based on PubMed

  • Published:
Scientometrics Aims and scope Submit manuscript

Abstract

Preprints are assuming an increasingly pivotal role in the realm of scientific communication. Capitalizing on their early accessibility, open access, and expeditious peer feedback, it is anticipated that submissions accompanied by preprints would enjoy advantages in terms of acceptance time. This study compared the differences in acceptance time between 100,077 preprint papers from the platforms arXiv, bioRxiv, and medRxiv, and 1,314,973 non-preprint papers submitted to the same journal within the same year and month. All these papers are indexed in PubMed, indicating that the majority originate from the life sciences and biomedical fields. The findings demonstrate that manuscripts released as preprints before journal submission experience significantly shorter acceptance time compared to those without preprints. However, if preprints are posted after submitting to a journal, they do not confer an advantage in terms of acceptance time. Furthermore, regression results grouped by Journal Impact Factor quartiles, Preprint-submission duration, preprint platform, pre- and post-COVID-19 outbreak, as well as by discipline, consistently demonstrate that preprint papers released as preprints before journal submission have an advantage in acceptance time.

This is a preview of subscription content, log in via an institution to check access.

Access this article

Subscribe and save

Springer+ Basic
$34.99 /Month
  • Get 10 units per month
  • Download Article/Chapter or eBook
  • 1 Unit = 1 Article or 1 Chapter
  • Cancel anytime
Subscribe now

Buy Now

Price excludes VAT (USA)
Tax calculation will be finalised during checkout.

Instant access to the full article PDF.

Fig. 1
Fig. 2

Similar content being viewed by others

References

  • Aksnes, D. W., Langfeldt, L., & Wouters, P. (2019). Citations, citation indicators, and research quality: An overview of basic concepts and theories. SAGE Open. https://doi.org/10.1177/2158244019829575

  • Anazco, D., Nicolalde, B., Espinosa, I., Camacho, J., Mushtaq, M., Gimenez, J., & Teran, E. (2021). Publication rate and citation counts for preprints released during the COVID-19 pandemic: The good, the bad and the ugly. PeerJ, 9, e109227.

    Article  Google Scholar 

  • Anderson, K. R. (2020). bioRxiv: Trends and analysis of five years of preprints. Learned Publishing, 33(2), 104–109.

    Article  Google Scholar 

  • Berg, J. M., Bhalla, N., Bourne, P. E., Chalfie, M., Drubin, D. G., Fraser, J. S., & Wolberger, C. (2016). Preprints for the life sciences. Science, 352(6288), 899–901.

    Article  Google Scholar 

  • Bertin, M., & Atanassova, I. (2022). Preprint citation practice in PLOS. Scientometrics, 127(12), 6895–6912.

    Article  Google Scholar 

  • Björk, B.-C., & Solomon, D. (2013). The publishing delay in scholarly peer-reviewed journals. Journal of Informetrics, 7(4), 914–923.

    Article  Google Scholar 

  • Brierley, L., Nanni, F., Polka, J. K., Dey, G., Palfy, M., Fraser, N., & Coates, J. A. (2022). Tracking changes between preprint posting and journal publication during a pandemic. PloS Biology, 20(2), e3001285. https://doi.org/10.1371/journal.pbio.3001285

    Article  Google Scholar 

  • Brown, C. (2001). The E-volution of preprints in the scholarly communication of physicists and astronomers. Journal of the American Society for Information Science and Technology, 52(3), 187–200.

    Article  Google Scholar 

  • Carneiro, C. F. D., Queiroz, V. G. S., Moulin, T. C., Carvalho, C. A. M., Haas, C. B., Rayêe, D., & Amaral, O. B. (2020). Comparing quality of reporting between preprints and peer-reviewed articles in the biomedical literature. Research Integrity and Peer Review, 5(1), 16. https://doi.org/10.1186/s41073-020-00101-3

    Article  Google Scholar 

  • Ciriminna, R., & Pagliaro, M. (2023). Preprints in chemistry: A research team’s journey. Chemistryopen. https://doi.org/10.1002/open.202200150

    Article  Google Scholar 

  • Flanagin, A., Fontanarosa, P. B., & Bauchner, H. (2020). Preprints involving medical research—do the benefits outweigh the challenges? JAMA, 324(18), 1840–1843. https://doi.org/10.1001/jama.2020.20674

    Article  Google Scholar 

  • Fraser, N., Brierley, L., Dey, G., Polka, J. K., Pálfy, M., Nanni, F., & Coates, J. A. (2021). The evolving role of preprints in the dissemination of COVID-19 research and their impact on the science communication landscape. PLoS Biology, 19(4), e3000959. https://doi.org/10.1371/journal.pbio.3000959

    Article  Google Scholar 

  • Fraser, N., Mayr, P., & Peters, I. (2022). Motivations, concerns and selection biases when posting preprints: A survey of bioRxiv authors. PLoS One, 17(11), e0274441.

    Article  Google Scholar 

  • Fraser, N., Momeni, F., Mayr, P., & Peters, I. (2020). The relationship between bioRxiv preprints, citations and altmetrics. Quantitative Science Studies, 1(2), 618–638.

    Article  Google Scholar 

  • Fu, D. Y., & Hughey, J. J. (2019). Releasing a preprint is associated with more attention and citations for the peer-reviewed article. eLife, 8, e52646. https://doi.org/10.7554/elife.52646

    Article  Google Scholar 

  • Gao, Y., Wu, Q., & Zhu, L. (2020). Merging the citations received by arXiv-deposited e-prints and their corresponding published journal articles: Problems and perspectives. Information Processing & Management, 57(5), 102267. https://doi.org/10.1016/j.ipm.2020.102267

    Article  Google Scholar 

  • Ginsparg, P. (1994). First steps towards electronic research communication. Computer in Physics, 8(4), 390–396. https://doi.org/10.1063/1.4823313

    Article  Google Scholar 

  • Haque, A.-U., & Ginsparg, P. (2009). Positional effects on citation and readership in arXiv. Journal of the American Society for Information Science and Technology, 60(11), 2203–2218.

    Article  Google Scholar 

  • Huber, J., Inoua, S., Kerschbamer, R., König-Kersting, C., Palan, S., & Smith, V. L. (2022). Nobel and novice: Author prominence affects peer review. Proceedings of the National Academy of Sciences, 119(41), e2205779119.

    Article  MathSciNet  Google Scholar 

  • Huisman, J., & Smits, J. (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

    Article  Google Scholar 

  • Kaiser, J. (2017). The preprint dilemma. Science, 357(6358), 1344–1349.

    Article  Google Scholar 

  • Kinney, R., Anastasiades, C., Authur, R., Beltagy, I., Bragg, J., Buraczynski, A., et al. (2023). The semantic scholar open data platform. arXiv preprint arXiv:2301.10140

  • Kirkham, J. J., Penfold, N., Murphy, F., Boutron, I., Ioannidis, J. P., Polka, J. K., & Moher, D. (2020). A systematic examination of preprint platforms for use in the medical and biomedical sciences setting. bioRxiv. https://doi.org/10.1101/2020.04.27.063578

    Article  Google Scholar 

  • Kurtz, M. J., Eichhorn, G., Accomazzi, A., Grant, C., Demleitner, M., Henneken, E., & Murray, S. S. (2005). The effect of use and access on citations. Information Processing & Management, 41(6), 1395–1402.

    Article  Google Scholar 

  • Lee, C. J., Sugimoto, C. R., Zhang, G., & Cronin, B. (2013). Bias in peer review. Journal of the American Society for Information Science and Technology, 64(1), 2–17.

    Article  Google Scholar 

  • Liang, Z., Mao, J., & Li, G. (2023). Bias against scientific novelty: A prepublication perspective. Journal of the Association for Information Science and Technology, 74(1), 99–114.

    Article  Google Scholar 

  • Lin, Z., Hou, S., & Wu, J. (2016). The correlation between editorial delay and the ratio of highly cited papers in nature, science and physical review letters. Scientometrics, 107(3), 1457–1464.

    Article  Google Scholar 

  • Lo, K., Wang, L. L., Neumann, M., Kinney, R., & Weld, D. S. (2019). S2ORC: The semantic scholar open research corpus. arXiv preprint arXiv:1911.02782

  • Luwel, M., & Moed, H. (1998). Publication delays in the science field and their relationship to the ageing of scientific literature. Scientometrics, 41(1–2), 29–40. https://doi.org/10.1007/bf02457964

    Article  Google Scholar 

  • Merton, R. K. (1995). The Thomas theorem and the Matthew effect. Social Forces, 74(2), 379–422. https://doi.org/10.2307/2580486

    Article  Google Scholar 

  • Nguyen, V. M., Haddaway, N. R., Gutowsky, L. F., Wilson, A. D., Gallagher, A. J., Donaldson, M. R., & Cooke, S. J. (2015). How long is too long in contemporary peer review? Perspectives from authors publishing in conservation biology journals. PLoS One, 10(8), e0132557.

    Article  Google Scholar 

  • Powell, K. (2016). Does it take too long to publish research? Nature, 530(7589), 148–151.

    Article  Google Scholar 

  • Runde, B. J. (2021). Time to publish? Turnaround times, acceptance rates, and impact factors of journals in fisheries science. PLoS One, 16(9), e0257841.

    Article  Google Scholar 

  • Salinas, S., & Munch, S. B. (2015). Where should I send it? Optimizing the submission decision process. PLOS One. https://doi.org/10.1371/journal.pone.0115451

    Article  Google Scholar 

  • Sarabipour, S., Debat, H. J., Emmott, E., Burgess, S. J., Schwessinger, B., & Hensel, Z. (2019). On the value of preprints: An early career researcher perspective. PLoS Biology, 17(2), e3000151. https://doi.org/10.1371/journal.pbio.3000151

    Article  Google Scholar 

  • Sarigöl, E., Garcia, D., Scholtes, I., & Schweitzer, F. (2017). Quantifying the effect of editor–author relations on manuscript handling times. Scientometrics, 113(1), 609–631.

    Article  Google Scholar 

  • Schreiber, M. (2012). Seasonal bias in editorial decisions for a physics journal: You should write when you like, but submit in July. Learned Publishing, 25(2), 145–151.

    Article  Google Scholar 

  • Sebo, P. (2023). Are acceptance and publication times longer in primary health care journals compared to internal medicine journals? A comparative study of 117 high-impact journals. Scientometrics, 128(1), 873–876. https://doi.org/10.1007/s11192-022-04593-2

    Article  Google Scholar 

  • Serghiou, S., & Ioannidis, J. P. A. (2018). Altmetric scores, citations, and publication of studies posted as preprints. JAMA, 319(4), 402–404.

    Article  Google Scholar 

  • Shibayama, S., Yin, D., & Matsumoto, K. (2021). Measuring novelty in science with word embedding. PLoS ONE, 16(7), e0254034.

    Article  Google Scholar 

  • Smart, P. (2022). The evolution, benefits, and challenges of preprints and their interaction with journals. Science Editing, 9(1), 79–84.

    Article  Google Scholar 

  • Taşkın, Z., Taşkın, A., Doğan, G., & Kulczycki, E. (2022). Factors affecting time to publication in information science. Scientometrics, 127(12), 7499–7515. https://doi.org/10.1007/s11192-022-04296-8

    Article  Google Scholar 

  • Tian, D., Liu, X., & Li, J. (2023). Is the acceptance time shorter for submission with preprints? In 27th International Conference on Science, Technology and Innovation Indicators (STI 2023). International Conference on Science, Technology and Innovation Indicators.. https://dapp.orvium.io/deposits/643e44b060d8975d0b762e74/view

  • Tsunoda, H., Sun, Y., Nishizawa, M., Liu, X., & Amano, K. (2020). The influence of bioRχiv on PLOS ONE’s peer-review and acceptance time. Proceedings of the Association for Information Science and Technology, 57(1), e398.

    Article  Google Scholar 

  • Tsunoda, H., Sun, Y., Nishizawa, M., Liu, X., & Amano, K. (2022). How preprint affects the publishing process: Duration of the peer review process between biorxiv and journal papers. Proceedings of the Association for Information Science and Technology, 59(1), 505–509.

    Article  Google Scholar 

  • Wang, Z., Chen, Y., & Glänzel, W. (2020). Preprints as accelerator of scholarly communication: An empirical analysis in mathematics. Journal of Informetrics, 14(4), 101097. https://doi.org/10.1016/j.joi.2020.101097

    Article  Google Scholar 

  • Wolf, J. F., MacKay, L., Haworth, S. E., Cossette, M. L., Dedato, M. N., Young, K. B., & Oomen, R. A. (2021). Preprinting is positively associated with early career researcher status in ecology and evolution. Ecology and Evolution, 11(20), 13624–13632.

    Article  Google Scholar 

  • Xu, X., Xie, J., Sun, J., & Cheng, Y. (2023). Factors affecting authors’ manuscript submission behaviour: A systematic review. Learned Publishing, 36(2), 285–298.

    Article  Google Scholar 

  • Yegros, A. Y., & Amat, C. B. (2009). Editorial delay of food research papers is influenced by authors’ experience but not by country of origin of the manuscripts. Scientometrics, 81(2), 367–380.

    Article  Google Scholar 

Download references

Acknowledgements

The manuscript is a new and extended version of our previous work which was accepted by the 27th International Conference on Science, Technology and Innovation Indicators (STI 2023) (Tian et al., 2023). The manuscript has been released on the preprint platform Orvium by the conference organizers. This work was supported by the Postgraduate Research & Practice Innovation Program of Jiangsu Province (KYCX23_0083).

Funding

This work was funded by Postgraduate Research & Practice Innovation Program of Jiangsu Province, KYCX23_0083, Dan Tian.

Author information

Authors and Affiliations

Authors

Corresponding author

Correspondence to Jiang Li.

Additional information

Publisher's Note

Springer Nature remains neutral with regard to jurisdictional claims in published maps and institutional affiliations.

Rights and permissions

Springer Nature or its licensor (e.g. a society or other partner) holds exclusive rights to this article under a publishing agreement with the author(s) or other rightsholder(s); author self-archiving of the accepted manuscript version of this article is solely governed by the terms of such publishing agreement and applicable law.

Reprints and permissions

About this article

Check for updates. Verify currency and authenticity via CrossMark

Cite this article

Tian, D., Liu, X. & Li, J. Accelerated acceptance time for preprint submissions: a comparative analysis based on PubMed. Scientometrics 129, 3787–3807 (2024). https://doi.org/10.1007/s11192-024-05056-6

Download citation

  • Received:

  • Accepted:

  • Published:

  • Issue Date:

  • DOI: https://doi.org/10.1007/s11192-024-05056-6

Keywords