Frustration With the Submission Process/System: Results From Survey Data

Abstract

With the constant technical upgrades and changing policies and practices for journal article submission platforms, it is no wonder that authors, editors, and reviewers are all frustrated. Editorial staff need to assess all aspects of these systems to determine how to help alleviate the stress and streamline the process while maintaining the integrity of scholarly publishing. Editorial staff must step back and view the editorial process through the eyes of the authors, editors, and reviewers to fully understand their frustration. For this study, authors, reviewers, editors, and publishing professionals were surveyed to determine their frustrations with current systems and processes, and survey data were analyzed to make recommendations for mitigating user frustration in the submission process. Introduction Authors want to publish their research in a respectable journal without having to spend hours of their time in the submission process. Trying to figure out all the different formatting rules and submission guidelines, in addition to figuring out how to operate within the platform, takes time. One author described the submission process steps in a piece written in The Scholarly Kitchen as follows, “Negotiate a misleading and counterintuitive third-party platform, read, and try to absorb several pages of arcane (and sometimes self-contradictory) format guidelines, categorize my article according to a rubric that did not make sense and finally, follow an uploading process that left me, at several points, unsure of whether I would have the opportunity to include essential figures.”1 Why is it so difficult to submit? Are the instructions unclear, […]