Annual Review of the TNS Editorial Process

This article provides an annual review of the editorial process for the Transactions on Nuclear Science regular contributed papers (those not associated with conferences or with our new section on nuclear medical and imaging sciences). This material also appeared as an Editorial in the February, 2003, issue of TNS, so anyone who read that note can skip this one and move on to other things.
The data presented begins with 1994, after I had fully transitioned into the Editor’s role for these Transactions. The “year” used for each data interval is from November 1 through October 31; for example, “2002” represents the twelve-month interval from November 1, 2001, through October 31, 2002.

Figure 1. Number of contributed papers submitted for consideration for publication in TNS.

Figure 1 shows the number of contributed papers submitted over each of the last 9 years, ranging from 67 to 113. Figure 2 shows for those manuscripts that completed the review process in a given year the percentage of manuscripts accepted for publication. As can be seen, the acceptance rate continues to remain around 50%.
Figure 3 shows the average time taken for the first review cycle for papers completing the review process in a given year. It generally takes from 6.5 to 8 weeks for the authors to be sent the comments from the reviewers of their manuscript. Although reviews are typically requested from at least three reviewers, the average number of reviews sent to authors ranges from 2.5 to 2.7 (Fig. 4); approximately 10– 17% of the time a reviewer does not return comments on a manuscript, resulting in this average being less than three.
Essentially all contributed manuscripts require revision in response to the reviewers’ comments. Over the last nine years, the average time for authors to submit the revised version of their manuscript after being sent the reviewers’ comments ranges from seven to over fourteen weeks, as illustrated in Fig. 5. It remains interesting that on average the authors seem to take longer to respond to the reviewers’ comments than for the reviewers to perform their reviews.

Figure 2. Percentage of contributed papers accepted for publication in TNS.

When all the editorial work is completed, and the manuscript is either accepted or rejected for publication, the manuscript (in electronic format) and illustrations (usually in electronic format) are sent to IEEE for publication. Figure 6 shows that the average time from receipt of a manuscript by the Editor until its final disposition (acceptance for publication or rejection) has ranged from 3.2 to 4.4 months over the period 1994 through 2002. In 2002 if two papers in which the authors took >6 months to return their first revision are eliminated from this average, the average time from receipt to final disposition drops from 3.5 to 3.2 months.

Figure 3. Average time to complete first review of papers submitted to TNS and to send authors the reviewers' comments.

There remains additional time before an accepted manuscript appears in print. Since the Transactions on Nuclear Science is published bimonthly, on average a manuscript is delayed one month waiting for the next publication issue. IEEE schedules approximately 11 weeks to format, index, paginate, typeset, and otherwise prepare for printing, print, and mail the issue.
An overview of the times in the publication process is shown in Fig. 7. For each year, the average times for first review, for the authors to respond to the comments from the first review, the delay from the fact that these Transactions are a bimonthly publication, and the time for IEEE to put together the issue is shown, along with what percentage each of these factors contribute to the overall time. This depiction is somewhat notional, since a number of manuscripts undergo a second (and sometimes a third) review cycle, and the average time for first review includes those manuscripts that are rejected (and thus do not proceed through the subsequent steps of the process). However, it does provide a good overall picture of the contributors to and the overall time for the publication process.

Figure 4. Average number of reviewers returning comments for each manuscript submitted to TNS

Unfortunately in 2002 many issues of the Transactions arrived late. As shown in Fig. 7, delays at IEEE again were longer than desired this year. In 1999, the average time for IEEE preparation (excluding the 4 week bimonthly delay) was about 11 weeks; in 2000 it was 16.7 weeks, in 2001 was about 15 weeks, and in 2002 was 20.6 weeks. These delays have been a concern for IEEE and these Transactions, and a number of process changes and efforts have been undertaken to reduce the time at IEEE to its target value of 11 weeks.
The international character of the journal dominated again this year. Of the 65 papers completing the review process during this period, 16 (25%) were from the US. Asia had the most submissions, with 21 (32%); Europe had 17 papers (26%). The Middle East accounted for 2 papers, Africa had 2, the Former Soviet Union had 1, and India/Pakistan had 6.

Figure 5. Average time for TNS authors to return revised versions of their manuscripts responding to comments from the first review cycle.

The average number of reviewers reporting on each manuscript has been 2.7. The reviewer pool for manuscripts draws upon the expertise of the international community; from 1994 through 2001 the proportion of international reviewers (those outside the United States) has ranged from 25% to 44% of the reviews returned. In 2002 that percentage was 44%.
If any readers have other questions about the editorial process for the Transactions on Nuclear Science, or have suggestions for improvement, please do not hesitate to contact me. Also I am continually seeking additional reviewers, so if any of you are interested in participating, please send me your name, mailing address, phone and FAX numbers, email address, and areas of interest/expertise.

Figure 6. Average time from receipt to final dispostion (acceptance or rejection) for each manuscript submitted to TNS

Figure 7. Average time for primary parts of publication process for each manuscript submitted to TNS.

Paul Dressendorfer, the editor of the Transactions on Nuclear Science, can be reached at the Sandia National Laboratories, P.O. Box 5800, MS 1413, Albuquerque, NM 87185-1413; Phone +1 505 844-5373; Fax: +1 505 844-8168; E-mail: dresspv@sandia.gov