GLOBAL PUBLISHING: CHANGES IN SUBMISSION TRENDS AND THE IMPACT ON SCHOLARLY PUBLISHERS. REUTERS/ Jorge Silva

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1 : CHANGES IN SUBMISSION TRENDS AND THE IMPACT ON SCHOLARLY PUBLISHERS REUTERS/ Jorge Silva APRIL 2012

2 : CHANGES IN SUBMISSION TRENDS AND THE IMPACT ON SCHOLARLY PUBLISHERS By looking at submission and decision trends across a variety of global publishers of all sizes and areas of focus common themes and challenges can be identified, along with areas to support improvements. One of the most apparent trends, and one that s currently seen at all stages of the research and publishing workflow, is the significant increase in research output from emerging regions. Managing this increase in submissions and the focus on delivering truly global content while maintaining rigorous peer review practices present challenges and opportunities for publishers, along with questions that merit further examination. INTRODUCTION For years, Western European nations and North America were at the center of the scholarly publishing community. Globally submissions continue to rise, but countries such as China and India are increasing their research output relative to those established countries, showing year-on-year increases in proportion of manuscripts submitted to academic journals. Examining the trends of submissions and evaluating acceptance and publication data reveals interesting discrepancies between traditional leaders and emerging players in scholarly publishing and raises some significant questions. In this increasingly global research community: How can scholarly publishers manage an ever-increasing number of submissions from such diverse sources? What factors are influencing discrepancies in regional acceptance rates? Is it a case of unintentional bias or other reasons? Can publishers address this and help content move from submission to publication without placing an undue strain on current processes? How can new opportunities be capitalized upon to expand the global reach of published scholarship to promote quality papers from emerging research centers? These questions are not new to the publishing community; they have felt the increased strain of this rise in submissions first hand. However, new data can help validate pain points previously hard to define and suggest solutions to gain the most benefit from managing and publishing truly global content. ABOUT THE DATA Data reported in this paper are provided by Thomson Reuters ScholarOne Manuscripts.* ScholarOne s customer base is reflective of the global scholarly publishing community, representing journals of all sizes and scopes, from high Impact Factor international titles to select niche, society, or regional journals. The aggregate dataset for analysis includes submissions, acceptances, rejections, and time-to-decision for 4,200 journals published by over 365 societies, publishers, and university presses. This encompasses over 3 million submissions during the analysis period The final year of analysis, 2010, was chosen since this is the most recent year where the majority of final decisions will have been made at the time of writing. All trends indicated persist into 2011 data. These publications international journals as well as niche and regional scholarly publications were collectively responsible for 1 million manuscript submissions in 2010 (1.2 million in 2011). In 2005, the total number of submissions made using ScholarOne Manuscripts was 317,325. The data have not been normalized to reflect the growing number of sites using ScholarOne Manuscripts. The trend from clients has been initially to debut larger sites, usually in Science, Technical and Medical (STM) subjects, and then move to smaller titles, often in non-stm fields (see Figure 1). This is reflected in the average number of submissions per ScholarOne Manuscripts site: in 2005 this was 453, while in 2010 it was 280. As a result, emphasis should be placed on the relative proportions of submissions from different countries rather than the total number of submissions, which is only a measure of the size of the analysis pool. 2

3 GLOBAL SUBMISSIONS CONTINUE TO INCREASE The ScholarOne data on global submissions reflects what publishers may have perceived from their own data global submissions continue a steady rise year-by-year in all regions. This is a combination of research output and the increasing number of publications using an online submission site. Anecdotally, many publishers report submissions further increasing after implementing an online submission system, perhaps because this facilitates easier submission. SHARE OF WORLD SUBMISSIONS IS THE TRADITIONAL AXIS OF RESEARCH CHANGING? While submissions have increased from almost all nations, changes in each nation s share of the world total paints a more complicated picture. Although the top 20 submitting countries remain largely the same from , the share of world total has significantly increased for some and decreased for others (See Table 1 and Table 2). For example, the United States remains ahead of China in total submissions processed, but the US has seen its share of the world total decrease by 3.3% while China s total share increased by 5.1% during the period As Table 1 and Table 2 illustrate, many of the top submitters in 2010 have nonetheless seen their share of world total decrease or remain static as the total number of submissions increase. Put another way, submissions from Western Europe and the United States are increasing less rapidly than in BRIC countries. From , the US and Japan increased submissions by 177% and 127%, respectively. However, China and India increased by 484% and 443%, and Iran and Malaysia saw a more than 800% increase in submissions (see Figure 2). Some contribution should be assumed by the increasing use of online submission systems, especially outside Western Europe and North America. NATIONAL INVESTMENTS IN SCIENTIFIC RESEARCH Much of the tremendous increases in submissions (and thus output) are a reflection of the significant investment developing nations have placed in science and the greater knowledge economy. A 2011 report from The Royal Society 1 reviews a number of research investments around the world, finding growth of commitment to science in a number of the non-g8 nations [as] especially striking (p. 5). Iran, for example, has set R&D investment goals to 4% of GDP (0.59% of GDP in 2006) and education investment goals to 7% of GDP (5.49% of GDP in 2007) by 2030 (p. 21). As nations continue to ramp up investment, further increases are expected in article output from a diverse international research base. FIGURE 1. INCREASING NUMBER OF SUBMISSIONS AND SITES USING SCHOLAR- ONE MANUSCRIPTS DURING THE PERIOD The point is not that the US and other traditionally strong scientific nations are decreasing output and submissions they are not, the number of submissions is growing globally but others are doing so at faster rates. This growth may flatten out as nations develop and mature, but this may take many years, and the axis of research may look significantly different in years should these trends continue. The effects of this shift will continue to impact publishers directly. As scholarly publishing is the primary measure of scholarly output, researchers and other authors will continue to feel the pressure to publish and publishers will continue to see an increase in the overall number submissions they receive. They will also face regional and cultural challenges associated with effectively processing and selecting the best submissions from regions that are relatively unfamiliar. More than ever, understanding where submissions are coming from and having the tools to optimize the peer review process will be critical to manage publishing and editorial policies effectively. PUBLICATION KEEPS PACE WITH SUBMISSIONS From 2005 to 2010, there was an increase in submission volume handled by the ScholarOne Manuscripts online submission and review system from 317K to 1.0M (up 215%). With such an increase in global submission numbers, accept rates for publication might be expected to decrease as publishers attempt to absorb this growing volume of material. However, despite this increase in submissions, publishers, on the whole, have kept pace with accepting and publishing content. As shown in Table 3, the 2005 and 2010 overall acceptance rates differed by less than 4%. Today, publishers are publishing more content than ever before. They are launching new regional journals, releasing non-traditional issues, and accepting more manuscripts for online publication only, often with an emphasis on open access. Publishers face their own pressures on subscription costs with significant 3

4 TABLE 1. TOP 15 INCREASES IN PROPORTION OF SUBMISSIONS. TABLE 2. TOP 15 DECREASES IN PROPORTION OF SUBMISSIONS. COUNTRY GROSS INCREASE IN SUBMISSIONS % CHANGE IN TOTAL SHARE COUNTRY GROSS INCREASE IN SUBMISSIONS % CHANGE IN TOTAL SHARE China 94, % India 40, % Iran, Islamic Republic of 19, % Malaysia 5, % Australia 21, % Taiwan 19, % Egypt 5, % Korea, Republic of 20, % Pakistan 3, % Portugal 4, % Brazil 13, % Tunisia 2, % Nigeria 2, % Norway 5, % South Africa 3, % United States 147, % Japan 24, % Germany 23, % Italy 18, % France 15, % Canada 20, % Turkey 14, % Netherlands 10, % United Kingdom 42, % Sweden 6, % Israel 4, % Spain 17, % Greece 4, % Finland 3, % Switzerland 5, % TABLE 3. ACCEPT RATES IN 2005 AND Submissions Accepted Rejected Accepted Rate Submissions Accepted Rejected Accepted Rate 317, , , % 1,008, , , % FIGURE 2. INCREASE IN NUMBER OF SUBMISSIONS PROCESSED DURING THE PERIOD FROM TOP 10 GROSS- ING COUNTRIES. BLUE BARS (2005) AND RED BARS (2010). RELATIVE CHANGE (PERCENT) IS SHOWN TO THE RIGHT. 4

5 FIGURE 3. ACCEPTANCE RATE CHANGES BETWEEN BLUE BARS (2005) AND RED BARS (2010). RELATIVE CHANGE (PERCENT) SHOWN TO THE RIGHT. backlashes against perceived unfair pricing policies from several major library and university consortia in recent years. Funding for purchasing new content for libraries is falling, pushing both publishers and libraries to look at new economic models and methods to disseminate content. Open access publication (and perhaps other models) is likely to continue to increase. Many publishers have entered into open access agreements or are launching their own open access titles. The growing volume of manuscripts for peer review has also created a need for new submission and peerreview tools that can streamline work for editors and reviewers, whom publishers rely on to select content for publication. As an indexer of academic publications and citations, Thomson Reuters experienced a similar intake of journal submissions to Web of Science from around the world. The company reported on a regionalization initiative where it added 1,600 regional journals from , accounting for 55% of all new journals indexed between , and 45% of new journals from 2000 to 2010 a result that changed the fabric of the Web of Science in unique ways. 2 REGIONAL CONTENT AND QUESTIONS OF QUALITY Globalization offers great opportunity for increasing scholarly dialogue, broadening the corpus of scientific literature, and providing new avenues for research and collaboration. It also brings an increased opportunity for regional content, where scientists and scholars report on the agricultural, climate, social, economic, and other location-specific challenges facing a nation or region. With this great influx of perspective also come obstacles to sifting through regional literature for quality science, regardless of where it originated. In its regional indexing initiative, Thomson Reuters found that out of 10,000 regional journals it reviewed from , only 1,600 met the standards for inclusion in Web of Science. 3 Regional content may, however, have its own local value that outweighs that of its global impact. Publishers are on the front line of evaluating and accepting content from around the world. Unlike indexers, they need to move content into the market and leverage a range of outlets to balance the demand for exceptional international science alongside that of quality, regional significance. Figure 3 and Table 4 confirm the trend that Western nations (and Japan), on the whole, enjoyed much higher acceptance rates both in 2005 and in 2010, during which there was a great surge in content from BRIC and other nonestablished nations. However, acceptance rate trends remain static. While questions of quality are part of the answer, it does not fully explain the discrepancies in acceptance rates. Overall acceptance rates are only one measure of quality and there are likely multiple explanations for this phenomenon. 5

6 TABLE 4. SUBMISSION AND ACCEPT RATE COMPARISON BETWEEN 2005 AND Change Submissions % total Accept Rate Submissions % total Accept Rate Submissions % total Accept Rate United States 83, % 50.8% 230, % 50.1% 147, % -0.7% China 19, % 26.2% 113, % 26.8% 94, % 0.6% United Kingdom 21, % 50.1% 63, % 51.9% 42, % 1.9% India 9, % 24.1% 49, % 19.9% 40, % -4.2% Japan 19, % 43.7% 43, % 43.1% 24, % -0.6% Germany 14, % 50.4% 37, % 51.6% 23, % 1.2% Canada 12, % 49.5% 32, % 47.5% 20, % -2.1% Italy 12, % 41.1% 31, % 39.4% 18, % -1.7% Australia 7, % 49.8% 29, % 46.8% 21, % -3.1% Korea, Republic of 7, % 34.1% 28, % 30.6% 20, % -3.5% Spain 9, % 38.8% 27, % 36.3% 17, % -2.4% Taiwan 6, % 31.8% 26, % 25.8% 19, % -6.0% France 10, % 45.9% 25, % 43.9% 15, % -2.0% Turkey 9, % 21.0% 23, % 18.7% 14, % -2.3% Iran, Islamic Republic of 2, % 20.5% 21, % 19.2% 19, % -1.3% Brazil 5, % 30.8% 19, % 26.5% 13, % -4.2% Netherlands 6, % 47.9% 17, % 44.5% 10, % -3.4% Sweden 4, % 50.7% 10, % 48.0% 6, % -2.7% Switzerland 3, % 52.1% 8, % 50.9% 5, % -1.2% Israel 3, % 39.1% 7, % 36.6% 4, % -2.5% For example, Iran s investments in science yielded significantly increased output but a relatively stable acceptance rate from publishers. India likewise increased submissions by nearly 450% but saw a decrease of 4.2% in acceptance rate (Table 4). While increased investment has stimulated publication, has quality lagged behind, or are obstacles preventing this increase in submissions from becoming a similar increase in published articles? Accept rate may be more a measure of success than quality and there may be new approaches for publishers to help improve the changes of this new material being published and cited. This could include language editing, mentoring programs for new authors, or the foundation of new regional titles to support this new content. THE CHALLENGE OF ADAPTING The acceptance bias toward the traditional axis of scholarly literature confirms what publishers experience day-to-day: there are greater challenges to reviewing and making decisions on this sharp influx of content from new countries, with diverse cultures and attitudes to publishing, non-english languages (the lingua franca of academic publication in most subject areas), and a lack of publishing history. It has been widely reported that being published often is heavily incentivized ( publish or perish ), generally via the assessment of academic performance and the tenure review process or more occasionally in the form of monetary payment. 4 If this drive were combined with the increasing number of researchers from traditionally wellpublished countries, the workload for publishers will steadily increase. Add to that an entirely new and significant influx of researchers from countries now directing their policies and investments towards research and development and the impact is significant. Publishers are not dealing with an incremental increase in workload associated with peer review, but rather a crush of manuscripts that must be fed through processes and procedures that may struggle to keep ahead of this tide. When this is the case, publication editors and staff are often forced to quickly weed through submissions and try to identify any possible candidates that can be processed into the peer review process, triaging out poorer or less relevant manuscripts early in the process. Low accept rates in this context are often symptomatic of rapid rejection before formal peer review can occur. A result of this is that possibly sound articles are rejected for purely linguistic reasons. Even where such manuscripts are passed into the peer review process, editors and reviewers may simply not feel equipped to deal with those that have significant language or structural issues. This is reflected in the time to first and final decision (Figure 4). Countries with low accept rates also have quicker decision times, where manuscripts may be more often rejected without full peer review. 6

7 FIGURE 4. TIME TO FIRST AND FINAL DECISION (ACCEPT OR REJECT) IN 2005 AND AVERAGE ALL-REGION VALUES INDICATED. RELATIVE CHANGE (PERCENT) SHOWN TO THE RIGHT. ACCOMMODATING CULTURAL DIVERSITY WITHIN PEER REVIEW SYSTEMS What is common practice in one culture may not seem so to another. This is as true in the publishing world as it is anywhere else. If cultural differences create confusion around what constitutes appropriate teamwork or plagiarism, good science may never make it into publishers workflow. Where manuscripts are written by non-native English speakers, getting to the root of the science presented can be time consuming and challenging for editors and reviewers who face the task of separating their assessment of the research from that of the language itself. Authors from non-english language countries may struggle to adequately express their findings or find suitable resources for translating their work adequately for potential English language publication. Both of these issues are becoming even more pressing with the increase in submissions from emerging regions, a trend the ScholarOne data not only confirms but also suggests as continuing to increase for the foreseeable future. However, many of the resulting pain points can be eased with systems and processes that take into account the changing origins of submitted papers. The idea of collaborative science, and of appropriate attribution to previous work, vary greatly from culture to culture. In some cultures, the reference to another researcher s concepts must be cited even when not quoting a previously published work directly. In other cultures, copying entire sections of another s work and incorporating them into one s own is an acceptable way of demonstrating the influence of that prior work. While globally publishers have established their own best practices as to what constitutes plagiarism, not all emerging regions share the same understanding. Being able to quickly identify potential plagiarism and its likely cause cultural practices or deliberate misrepresentation makes it easier to determine how to move the manuscript through the peer review process. In cases of cultural norms, and if the manuscript is very good science, the effort of working with the author to come to a mutually acceptable version could be worthwhile. Of course, educating authors on acceptable practice will help avoid these issues, and such education or mentoring programs may help authors make more successful submissions, and drive overall acceptance rates. The same principle applies to self-plagiarism: while it is an unwritten rule in publishing that authors should only submit to one journal at a time, in many regions the submit to anything that s appropriate practice still holds true. Uncovering these instances across a suite of journals, and determining whether the research is appropriate, can inform the decision to publish or not to publish, and help publishers decide the best way to help their authors, or indeed, if different publication models are required. 7

8 Systems that help automatically identify potential issues at the time of submission ease the manual process of journal administrators and prevent time-consuming review for clearly unacceptable manuscripts. But they also help journals identify those manuscripts that might warrant further examination to determine whether the issues are related to cultural barriers that can be overcome. This helps publishers ensure their content is the most relevant, representative of their subject globally. Similarly to differences in attribution practices, language barriers can make it difficult to make even an initial decision on whether to continue a manuscript through the peer review process. Increasingly, international authorship is factored into determining a journal s relevance in the field. With the rise in research from emerging regions, reviewing submissions from non-native English speaking authors can present real problems for publishers. From the start, if submission requirements are not clearly understood by an author, manuscripts can be impossible to process through the peer review process. To make sure requirements are adhered to before the submission ever enters the system, many publishers offer extensive Author Service portals that provide clear guidelines to how manuscripts must be formatted (along with the scope of the journal) in multiple languages to make sure the materials submitted are appropriate and can be easily processed. Additionally, if submissions are difficult to understand due to language barriers, time and resources may not be available to make them ready for peer review (a process still predominated by English-speaking reviewers). Generally the options have been to either spend extensive time cleaning up a submission or reject the submission based on language problems even though the science may be good. Many publishers refer authors to services that provide pre-submission copyediting to help increase the quality of submissions from non-english speaking authors before they enter the review process. These services can also be built into the submission process, streamlining the management for editorial offices even further. Publications in most areas continue to feel pressure to publish content quickly with minimal delays. Authors factor in publication time when deciding which titles to submit their work to. Delayed publication has negative consequences for both authors and the publication. Incorporating services into the peer review workflow at the front-end can help circumvent many potential time killers while still taking advantage of the increase in submissions from emerging regions and helping those authors to a successful publication. With a growing international authorship, publications could also look to increase their pool of international reviewers with a wider linguistic and academic expertise. This may help process those manuscripts where language or cultural issues are involved. Additionally, new reviewers may be more inclined to work closely with authors, and act as mentors, helping to ensure manuscripts are given full consideration based on their content rather than language, and ensuring final articles, when accepted, are suitable for wide readership. Publishers can also look to established or new local titles that do not need to be published in English, and may stimulate regional output without language issues becoming a barrier to publication. This may also have the benefit of opening new markets to publishers. LEVERAGING TOOLS TO BUILD PROGRAMS Accommodating increased submissions from new regions is a problem that most heavily affects some journals, but this global submission trend presents an opportunity for all publishers even those who are not currently feeling the crunch on resources. By understanding where current submissions are coming from and how this has changed over the years, publishers can identify hot spot regions where their journals are receiving the most attention. This can inform everything from sales and marketing efforts to the development of new publications, regional journals, or special topic issues. Additionally, mapping the geographic origin of submissions against specific pain points in current workflows can help identify areas where special attention may be needed. For example, if a recent increase in submissions from Taiwan corresponds to lower than expected acceptance rate, perhaps specific author outreach or communications may be warranted to ensure submission and acceptance policies are clearly understood. In the same fashion that ScholarOne submission data helps identify broad industry trends, peer review systems can allow publishers to evaluate trends over time in context of their submissions and acceptance rates. Peer review systems also come with advanced tools to drill down data by topic or origin. Again, this approach highlights the value in publishers mining their own submission data to incorporate key findings into strategic planning for content expansion and diversification. 8

9 CONCLUSION The globalization of the research base offers many challenges and opportunities. This is not news to publishers, but for the first time these trends are becoming easy to measure and track, with submission and peer review systems becoming strategic tools. The increasing utilization of peer review systems and their reporting tools can offer publishers the key to make sense of the submission noise and pinpoint areas for strategic focus. Publishers may find that language tools can easily remedy obstacles in one region, where another may require direct outreach with authors. By auditing submissions data and optimizing peer review workflows, publishers can identify their specific challenges and plan initiatives to address them. Online peer review systems are becoming more sophisticated each year, often extending capabilities beyond the traditional peer review process to include the related tasks associated with moving a journal to publication. Incorporating these related tasks and offering flexible configuration options are critical to ensure a system not only supports current needs but can be modified to help continue to manage global submission trends effectively. Whether publishers are trying to manage an influx of submissions from emerging regions or need to more accurately target specific countries or topics to support their growth strategy, having the right peer review system is critical to helping publishers stay ahead of submission trends, control their costs, and continue to sponsor the highest quality output, regardless of its geographical origin. ENDNOTES * ScholarOne Manuscripts is an online manuscript submission and peer review process that integrates manuscript invitation, submission, fee collection, file conversion, correspondence, tracking, reviewer management, decision-making, reporting, issue planning, user data management, broadcast , XML metadata transformation, and integration with print and online production. 1. The Royal Society, Knowledge, networks and nations: Global scientific collaborations in the 21st century, (RS Policy document 03/11), March Testa, James. The Globalization of Web of Science: , (2011) Ibid. 4. C. Franzoni, G. Scellato, P. Stephan, Changing incentives to publish, Science, 333 (6043): 702-3, 5 August P. Davis, Are cash bonuses the right incentive for science authors?, The Scholarly Kitchen (blog entry), 8 August

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