Editorial time management: Peer review dates and other key dates of Spanish Communication journals

: The main objective of this study was to identify editorial practices related to time management in Spanish Communication journals and determine whether their time management is homogeneous, as well as to evaluate which journals are more agile, discover the differences between general and special issues, and identify practices that could streamline the publication process. To this end, we worked with an exploratory-type methodology focused on content analysis. The sample analysed included 1,581 articles published in 2021 by the 62 Communication journals included in the Índice Dialnet de Revistas (IDR) 2020, differentiating between those published in general and special issues, with the aim of focusing attention on the time elapsed from when journals receive articles until their ﬁ nal publication. The results reveal little homogeneity in policies regarding information on dates and con ﬁ rms average times of more than 6 months for the duration of the process, with the publication process for special issues being more agile. The strength of this work lies in the demonstration of the need to work on common policies that enable the publication process to be streamlined while accelerating the availability of research results for the bene ﬁ t of academia as well as


INTRODUCTION
The peer review system, in all its various forms, supports the academic publication process and acts as a self-regulatory mechanism for the scientific fields.This centuries-old practice dates back to 1665, when the German theologian Oldenburg, the first secretary of the Royal Society of London, took over the management of foreign correspondence and decided to select some texts for compilation in its Philosophical Transactions, resorting to the opinion of experts (Baldwin, 2017).Starting from the field of philosophy, its development has been nonuniform in different fields.In physics, for example, Lalli (2016) confirms that only after 1960 was external arbitration generalized in a systematic way for all the texts received, becoming an indispensable process for validating contributions to existing knowledge.
The peer review process relies on experts in a field who evaluate articles submitted by researchers to determine their quality and originality, as well as to assess the proposed contribution and suggest modifications that could improve their form, structure, and/or content (Alberts et al., 2008;Campanario, 2002;Fyfe et al., 2019).The peer review process results in high-level intellectual debate along three dimensions comprising editors, researchers, and peer reviewers.
In journal publishing, peer review plays an essential role that enables decisions to be made regarding the publication or rejection of a text.A group of Spanish Communication journals has thus promoted the Peer Reviewer School (Escuela de Revisores in Spanish) initiative, providing interesting and didactic reflections derived from editorial practice from a disciplinary and ethical point of view. 1 Fyfe et al. (2019) mention the importance of the strategic management of the editorial process for achieving the creative mix of community engagement and professional responsibility that is essential for contemporary journals.
Meanwhile, peer reviewers have the opportunity to learn about innovative research before its publication, to share their expert knowledge with colleagues in the interests of scientific progress, and to achieve recognition as experts in the field (Publons, 2018). 2 One questionnaire answered by 2,932 peer reviewers (Warne, 2015) showed that the United States bears a disproportionate burden of peer reviews, while China publishes twice what it reviews.The motivation for peer review is to give something back to the scientific community, but the benefit is greater when the journal is high impact: they report having received formal review training in the form of journal guidelines or informally through colleagues, while 77% acknowledge their interest in receiving more training in peer review.In addition, Wang et al. (2022) compared the self-perceptions of Chinese researchers distinguishing between early (ECRs) and senior (SCRs) career researchers.ECR consider peer review as an extra-role responsibility and are more willing to accept review invitations from high-quality indexed journals than SCR, but both have similar conscientiousness and agreeableness.
Meanwhile, authors receive advice that highlights the strengths and weaknesses of their text as well as potential modifications that would improve the initial version.In addition, the final decision regarding publication or rejection directly affects the career development evaluation of faculty by controlling whether important benefits are received.Indeed, in Spain, scientific publications are the prevailing criterion used in the accreditation process for contractual or official positions as well as in the process of recognition for 6-year research periods and when evaluating the curricula vitae of the members of a research team applying for project funding.
In this context, in which the timing, but also the roles of the interacting individuals determine the progress of the publication of knowledge, the main objective of this study is to identify the editorial practices related to time management in Spanish Communication journals and determine the elapsed times between different phases, as well as to evaluate which journals are more agile, discover the differences between general and special issues, and identify practices that can streamline the publication process.

Literature review
Transparency in scientific publications is a major concern in the academic community.Some studies have valued the need to reform the system to achieve transparency (Vuong, 2018(Vuong, , 2020) ) and have pointed to journals and publishing processes as responsible for it (Vuong, 2019).
It therefore seems indisputable that the peer review system supports academic publication at the highest level.It also supports the meritocratic system applied to evaluate faculty and determine economic and research supplements.Consequently, the time management process that is applied in the peer review process is decisive for the key processes in any academic career, and the amount of time influences the degree of satisfaction of all those involved.The process is very competitive, and its duration can speed up or slow down, enable or hinder, intellectual, personal, economic, salary, and contractual aspirations.In turn, all of this restrains scientific progress from following a defined rhythm.The issue of time thus becomes a relevant research topic itself.
Most authors habitually experience the difficulty and complexity related to the investment of time and effort required for the successive revisions that are usually required prior to publication.These are the demands of a rigorous peer review process

Key points
• Analysis of editorial time management at 62 Spanish Communication journals, including 1,581 articles and 3,976 published dates, reveals high heterogeneity in policies on the inclusion of dates of receipt, review, acceptance, and publication.
• The interval between submission and acceptance has an average duration of more than 6 months.
• Publication times are shorter for special issues.
• There is an urgent need to streamline the publication process and accelerate the availability of research results for the benefit of academia and society.
We find that the academic literature reveals certain pathologies in the editorial management of peer review times.Editorial teams suffer from academic fatigue, reporting a bottleneck in assigning peer reviewers, the acceptance of reviews, and meeting review deadlines, as evidenced by the Global State of Peer Review (Publons, 2018).Peer reviews are more extensive and faster in journals with a better impact index, resulting in a certain level of conditional efficiency, according to Spinak (2019).The speed of peer review and publication is the main reason for the controversial choice of publishing in mega journals (see Solomon, 2014).Delays in publication are frustrating for those who do research and compete for recognition and, in some areas where the race for priority is pressing, the loss of one results in a gain for another (Jennings, 2006).Farooq (2015) found that 38% of the 3,040 authors who had published in Web of Science in 2008 were dissatisfied with the time spent on the editorial peer review process.Overall, such delays hinder the dissemination of new knowledge, with a clear cost to the scientific community and society at large.Publons (2018) reports a slowdown in the availability of scientific knowledge owing to the discrepancy between the annual growth in peer view requests (9.8%) and the rate of acceptance of texts for publication (4.9%) as a problem.However, the gap between these figures also demonstrates the ultimate purpose of the review process, namely, the selection of the best texts for publication, which entails the rejection of some.This difference is justified, despite the peer review process being both essential and fallible (Powell, 2016).
To achieve transparency, journals publish various dates as evidence of the peer review process: date of receipt/submission, peer review date (the beginning and/or end of the process), acceptance date (when the editorial decision is communicated to authors and/or reviewers), date of previous/preprint publication (when a version of the searchable and citable text is made public on an open platform simultaneously with or prior to the peer review process), the date of the editing/in-press stage (when the accepted version becomes searchable and citable with all its revisions but without volume or number assignment, with/without DOI, without page numbers, while usually awaiting typesetting and aesthetic-formal review), and date of publication (of the final text).However, there is no consensus regarding which dates define the peer review process (Azar, 2004;Khosravi, 2018;Royle, 2015), and each journal publishes the dates it deems most appropriate.Some journals also publish the average duration over the last year (or latest issue/volume) as information for future submissions.In this regard, our first two research questions arise: Is the publication of dates from the review process a widespread practice?(RQ1); what types of dates are made public in the final publication?(RQ2).Lyman (2013) limited peer review time to the duration between the submission of a manuscript and the notification of the editorial decision.The publication of such dates allows the average times to be determined.These data matter to researchers because they affect decision-making regarding journal choice.They are also important for the journal because they determine its ranking and recognition.
Studies that we have found on this subject have utilized highly disparate peer review sample sizes: 160,753 (Aguado-L opez & Becerril-García, 2021), 2000 (Bornmann & Daniel, 2010), 369 (Sabaj et al., 2015), 67 (Cornelius, 2012), 30 (Shah et al., 2016), and 24 (Behera et al., 2021).Clusters of scientific fields mostly in the non-social sciences have been the subjects of a greater number of studies regarding the aspect of time.In general, times may or may not contribute to the reasonable and pertinent communication of knowledge.Indeed, two opposing understandings of peer review times coexist in the current literature, namely, time as an obstacle to knowledge sharing (Powell, 2016;Royle, 2014) and time as an indicator of review rigorousness (Björk & Solomon, 2013).
The longest review times (of 100 days on average) and the highest rejection rates are found in the social sciences when compared with the natural sciences, as revealed by Björk and Solomon (2013) in their study on Scopus.This was also confirmed by the study by Aguado-L opez and Becerril-García (2021) that confirmed this trend in Latin America, indicating an average of 133 days in the Communication field between reception and acceptance during 2018, compared with 88 days in 2008, reflecting a trend toward a slowdown.This raises new research questions for the case of Spanish Communication journals: How many days does the submission-peer review/acceptance/publication process take on average?(RQ3) Are there differences in such timeframes between an article published in general (miscellaneous) and special issues (monographs)?(RQ4).
Faced with this situation, some journals are promoting positive practices regarding expediting deadlines, such as prior online publication of preprints and/or in-press texts, or continuous publication in contrast to the traditional volume/number system.
Additional research questions thus arise: Which journals have more agile editorial policies, and which are slower?(RQ5) Which Communication journals adopt pre-print or in-press practices to streamline public access to texts?(RQ6).The adoption of these pre-publication practices leads to differences in which publication deadline is considered, because this is usually described in relation to the date of print publication or the closure of the issue, although in other cases, the deadline can refer to the date on which the article first becomes available to be read and cited.
The aim of these positive practices in editorial time management is to make the system sustainable and reduce the time between the generation of knowledge and its sharing, as well as to seek more agile, efficient, and transparent scientific communication.However, the pressure to publish and reduce publication times has a parallel problem in terms of the lack of synchronization with the times taken for career development evaluation for faculty members of public institutions.This double pressure imposed by the system in this age of over-information hinders the basic process that lies at the origin of everything: faculty have little time to read current material, became familiar with it to be able to cite it, or to reflect upon it (Eve et al., 2021).
In view of the above, research into editorial time management can contribute to improving important processes for the scientific community.

OBJECTIVES AND METHODOLOGY
The main aim of this work was to identify the editorial practices related to time management in Spanish Communication journals.To achieve this, an ad hoc analysis was carried out to collect information on editorial policies with regard to time management.This original study aimed to shed light on the problem of deadlines in the Spanish research system and to evaluate editorial strategies or practices that may benefit both the research community and journal editorial teams.In addition, it aimed to enable a comparison of the agility and delays in deadlines and editorial processes that contribute to the performance of research that is adequate in both time and form.The sample uses research articles, excluding other recurring formats in scientific journals such as editorials, reviews or essays.In addition, the language of the articles has not been taken into account.
The variables used in the content analysis are listed in Table 1, created ad hoc, in which two different units of analysis are described.
1.The journal as an editorial platform for research, and the article itself as a research result.The specific research object is based on the dates that the journals publish, from receipt to the final publication of the article.
2. The scientific articles themselves.The authors use the term agility to refer to the general time that elapses between the journal's receipt of a manuscript and its publication.However, as stated in the method, all its phases have been assessed, based on the dates published by the journals which, in one way or another, as stated in the results, can affect this agility.In this interpretation, the time that the author takes to send the revised versions to the journals is not considered, since it is a question of assessing editorial time management and, therefore, it is understood that it is the editorial team who regulates and marks the dates and deadlines.

RESULTS
The data analysed revealed that 93.6% (n = 58) of the Communication journals published articles in 2021, while 66.1% (n = 86) also published special issues.Only four journals did not publish scientific articles in either general or special issues during the studied year.Of the total number of journals that published articles in 2021, 88.7% (n = 55) published some date(s) in the articles, whereas only 3.59% of the 1,587 articles analysed did not include any dates in their content.
However, these results may not coincide with the periods of highest receipt of manuscripts, since only texts accepted for publication but not those rejected are considered.Note that the months with the highest number of texts coincide with the months prior to the standard publication dates of the journals (Fig. 1).

Published dates and average duration of the publishing process
A more detailed study of the nature of the published dates indicates that the dates that appear most frequently (Fig. 2) are those of acceptance (32%), receipt (32%), and publication (26%), although in some cases, there are additional dates, such as the review date (5%), the publishing date (1%), the date of acceptance with modifications (1%), or the date of publication as a preprint (1%) (Fig. 3).
The average number of days elapsing between the submission of a text by the authors and its final publication by the journal in general issues was 214.4 days, while the average number of days from sending the text to its acceptance was 126.7 days.
These data reveal that, in general, from the moment in which an article is accepted until it is published, there is a considerable delay that negatively impacts the functioning of the scientific system by substantially delaying the results of research advances.
Regarding other dates that are published less widely in the analysed sample, it is observed that the average number of days for those articles that publish a date of acceptance with modifications is 187 days (relating only to five articles).This finding also corroborates the slowdown of the process considering that, in this phase, a final review of the modifications is still necessary after acceptance.The time between the date of submission and the date of edition, although rarely stated, averages 196.6 days, with this date generally being very close to the moment of publication.
However, when it comes to special issues (monographs), these dates are considerably accelerated, with the overall average from submission of a manuscript to its publication being 170.4 days.Interestingly, in the case of special issues, the average number of days from submission to acceptance is also shorter (88 days), although the time from the acceptance of a work to its final publication is longer, as in the case of general issues (miscellaneous), reaching almost twice the time mentioned above.
Out of the total number of articles published by scientific communication journals (1581), 54.8% were published in miscellaneous and 45.2% in special issues.As seen in Fig. 3, the difference between the duration of the complete publication process in general versus special issues is 43.8 days in favour of the latter, while the difference between the date of submission and the acceptance of a work is 38.2 days on average, also being faster for special issues.Source: Author's creation.
Regarding the editorial policy on dates, only 34% of journals specify the average duration of the peer review process in their editorial rules.The average data stipulated by these journals (n = 21) is 79 days, although a detailed study of the journals that implement this policy reveals some inconsistency between the average dates published in their editorial policies and the actual duration of their peer review process.

Journals with more agile processes
This detailed analysis of the dates published by the journals makes it possible to establish a list of Spanish Communication journals with more agile editorial policies.Of the 55 analysed journals that publish dates, only 5.45% (n = 3) maintain an average publication process shorter than 100 days: Revista de Estudios Institucionales, Comunicaci on y Métodos, and Revista Fotocinema, all indexed in Q4 of the IDR 2020 from Dialnet Métricas.A total of 25.45% (n = 14) of the journals take between 100 and 200 days for the final publication of manuscripts, while 20% (n = 11) take between 200 and 300 days and 12.72% (n = 7) achieve periods longer than 300 days on average.As mentioned above, only 34% (n = 21) of the analysed journals provide data regarding the average time taken for the review process (79 days) on their website.However, note that 100% of the editorial policies that refer to time management also mention how long the period lasts, that is, the period from the time the person submits a text until the journal notifies its acceptance.When this limited group of journals refers to the duration of the peer review process with the aim of improving transparency, it is noted that only 14.28% (n = 3) comply with their presented peer review time policy.The average delay with respect to the presented time policy is 38.58 days.However, this average number of days stated by the journals does not correspond to the publication date, which is considerably delayed.

Practices for expediting the process
As policies applied by Communication journals to accelerate public access to texts before final publication, only 11.29% (n = 7) adopt preprint, in-press, or similar sections.This practice, which allows accepted texts to be consulted on the journal's website even if they still lack a volume number or pagination, is applied This practice, which encourages and expedites the availability of results of research advances, despite its low presence in the analysed sample, is observed more widely in the best-indexed journals.

DISCUSSION
The data show that although many dates are published regarding the editorial process, there is no homogeneous criteria among journals, nor is there a common policy on time management, although there is a slight interest in publishing averages of length of time in editorial policies (RQ1).The dates that are published most often are receipt, acceptance, and publication, without disregarding other dates (RQ2).The average length of the process from the time the article is sent to when it is published is 214 days in general issues and 170 days in special issues (RQ3).
Special numbers are generally faster, specifically, an average of 38.2 days faster (RQ4).Only three journals have editorial processes of less than 100 days (Revista de Estudios Institucionales; Comunicaci on y Métodos and Revista Fotocinema) (RQ5).The publication of preprint or in press articles, which allows the acceleration of public access to accepted texts, has only been detected in 11.29% of the cases (RQ6).
The results of this study show that there is no consensus regarding the publication of dates for the different processes that form part of scientific publication, confirming the conclusions of previous studies (Azar, 2004;Khosravi, 2018;Royle, 2015).
Although some authors have defined peer review time as the time elapsed between the submission of a text to the journal and the notification of its acceptance by the editorial team (Lyman, 2013), this study shows that the meaning is broader and clashes with the time or interval of publication.The date when the editorial decision is communicated does not always coincide with the date of publication of the text.Final modifications can occur between the editorial decision and the final publication as part of the double-blind peer review process, viz.tasks inherent to the process of proofing, typesetting, and translation, which involve successive interactions within the editorial-author team to clean up aesthetic and/or formal aspects of the text.
We found that an average of 87.7 days passes from when a manuscript is accepted until it is edited and published, a long period that must undoubtedly be considered to be part of the peer review-publishing process.Although this difference is smaller for special issues, it is not proportional to the agility described above for special issues, confirming the need to consider the review process as broader.
While previous work had stated an average of 100 days for the duration of the publication process in the field of the social sciences (Björk & Solomon, 2013), the current work reveals that, in the area of Communication in Spain, this average is much higher, specifically 214 days for general issues and 170 days for special issues.This confirms the statements of Aguado-L opez and Becerril-García (2021) regarding the progressive slowdown of the publication process over the years.
The results obtained in this study show that there is no direct relationship between the agility of a journal and whether it is indexed, thus confirming (at least in Spanish Communication journals) the conditional efficiency that Spinak (2019) attributed to journals with the greatest impact.There is thus no correlation between journal choice, good indexing, and short deadlines, as also argued by Solomon (2014) in a study regarding the time management of mega journals.
However, the current study also reveals more agile deadlines when publishing in special versus general issues, a fact that would favour research by the scientific community on topics proposed by the journals, to achieve faster publication.In line with previous work that has examined the phenomenon of special issues as an editorial practice in depth (Repiso et al., 2021), special issues help to expedite pressing research topics, which together with the greater agility noted in their publication, consolidates a shared, harmonious, and balanced space between special and general issues.
The Bonn Declaration on Freedom of Scientific Research (2020) predicted that, if the widespread practice of the publication of special issues were consolidated, scientific freedom would be threatened, leaving policies on research themes in the hands of editorial teams.This fact, combined with the dissatisfaction of the research community regarding publication deadlines (Farooq, 2015) and the frustration regarding the delays that hinder academic careers (Jennings, 2006), could give rise to an environment of scientific publication based on promotion by the contacts within the profession rather than ethical and rigorous research.
Another discussion stems from focusing more attention on the internal deadlines that a scientific journal requires to function properly.Although time has been considered to be an indicator of a rigorous and thorough peer review process (Björk & Solomon, 2013), the data obtained in this study do not reveal a direct relationship between the quartile of the journal and its agility.On the contrary, better-indexed journals could be subject to a higher volume of work because they receive more texts owing to academic interest in obtaining greater value in the accreditation and consolidation systems of research staff.It is evident that time becomes a factor that hinders the sharing of knowledge (Powell, 2016;Royle, 2014), and that the burden to which not only external reviewers (Warne, 2015) but also editorial teams are subjected represents a problem that directly affects the slowdown of the editorial process.This should be explored in direct consultation with the stakeholders involved.In any case, the publication of dates and averages provides necessary transparency in editorial processes and in journal policies, ensuring rigorous and quality scientific progress (Vuong, 2019(Vuong, , 2020)).

CONCLUSIONS
The work presented herein allows it to be concluded that there is no common policy on or shared criteria for the publication of dates describing the editorial processes of Communication journals indexed in Dialnet Métricas.Although such dates are often specified, no standardized patterns or usual formulas are followed, preventing a homogeneous concept of the periods through which scientific articles pass, from their first contact with the journal until they are published.A discussion among editors and publishers to agree and share a common concept of dates is necessary.Those who publish and read would have more accurate, guiding, and complete information, as well as temporal data regarding when research is completed, evaluated, and published.
A commitment to publish the dates is noted, at least the most common ones such as the dates of receipt, acceptance, and publication, as well as some interest in publishing information regarding time periods in the editorial policies of the journals analysed.However, it is evident that the long process from the time a manuscript is submitted until it is published represents a general problem, having consequences for scientific knowledge and development as well as the consolidation of academic careers.
On the one hand, deadlines are becoming one of the principal elements influencing which journals new texts are sent to, as well as a differentiating factor in publishing that reveals the type and level of management of each journal.However, strictness may be compatible with agility in the review process; they are not opposing or mutually exclusive concepts.The key could be the correct selection of reviewers and an honest commitment to the process.
Aspects such as the opinions of the three sets of stakeholders (authors, reviewers, and the editorial team) on the duration in the editorial processes and their influence on the ranking (perceived image) of the journal require further study and would of such perceptions or opinions that could complement the present work.Likewise, to identify trends in such times, it would be necessary to enhance the longitudinal nature of this study.Further study could analyse the similarity or discrepancy between the time periods of the peer review process provided by the journal and the actual time period used by reviewers, to deduce the degree of feasibility or realism of the editorial approach and adjust such strategies to expectations.Doubleblind scientific review usually involves at least two external reviewers.If their reports are highly divergent, a third-person review is often required.Previously, the text has been reviewed by at least one person from the editorial board before being sent for external review.In addition, if the text has been submitted to a monograph or special issue, at least one of the coordinators can/should also review the text.
However, it is difficult to obtain a record of the number of people who have been involved in the review process because both the review context and the review models available (singleblind, double-blind, open, transparent, interactive or collaborative, post-publication, post-publication commenting, pre-print com-menting…) are very varied.To record this, some journals have started to publish the name of the external reviewers once the text has been published, as a pdemonstration of transparency and rigour.The experience of more than 14 years of editing journals recommends involving at least three people: someone from the editorial team (essential) plus two external reviewers (most recommendations on scientific review speak of reviewers in the plural, i.e., at least two, as does COPE, 2017).In practice, the number of participants is greater (including a review of bibliographic references, a review of the methodology, an antiplagiarism review, an anonymity review, a stylistic review, proofing, typesetting, translation, translation quality review, database and repository management, and visibility management, among others).The system needs a commitment regarding these terms.It is the responsibility of the entire scientific community to become conscious of this 'publication footprint' and the efficiency of the system to ensure its sustainability in the short, medium, and long term.
Another interesting line of research could relate the duration of the review process to the level of agreement between reviewers.It would also be interesting to compare the time intervals in the different types of interaction, that is, between the editorial team and reviewers and between the editorial team and authors.For this, it would be necessary to obtain the specific internal data on the duration of revisions, type of editorial decision and interval of each interaction.This is sensitive information but accessible through electronic editorial management systems.As a first method, it is suggested that such data might be requested directly from the publisher.In the case of a negative response, the alternative method, although less precise, would be to obtain qualitative data through the opinion of the editors by means of an online questionnaire or in-depth interviews.
Editorial teams face the challenge of simplifying peer review reports and response systems to make them more agile and less time-consuming.Researchers have the challenge of solidarity and responsibility, taking on peer reviews in a necessary act of reciprocity, while peer reviewers accept the challenge of ensuring that acceptable deadlines are met so as not to incur unjustified delays, as well as producing reports with meaningful, feasible, and honest suggestions that match well with ethical practices such as COPE (2017), among others.Training of those who participate in the review process, and their subsequent dismissal in the case of unsatisfactory performance, are tactics within the reach of editorial teams to control deadlines better.Although not derived from the study conducted, our experience as editors allows us to recognize that the majority of people in charge of journals recognize the effort involved in persuading researchers to review an article.
Beyond the challenges and responsibilities of those who edit, review, and publish, and their necessary involvement in the process, it is worth noting that, as seen herein, there are some initiatives and practices that can improve the visibility of accepted works before volume and/or page numbers are assigned.This practice, albeit not very common in this sample, is exemplified by preprint or online-first sections and represents an improvement in the advancement of scientific knowledge that can strengthen research development, both on a personal level and also to improve the visibility of journals themselves.
Ultimately, this study highlights the importance of public communication between the editorial team, reviewers, and authors before, during, and after the peer review process.The main contribution of this work is to explore and establish the publishing time periods in Spanish Communication journals that implement double-blind peer review.Editorial practices aimed at shortening these deadlines on the basis of publication before the closure of the issue are identified, as well as the average times, along with the multiplicity of dates that are made public, thus confirming the lack of consensus regarding their use or calculation.One limitation of this study lies in the impossibility of generalizing its results to disciplines other than Communication or to a context beyond Spain.However, the results presented enable reflections for both this specific area of study as well as the functioning of the academic and scientific community in general.
among the research team, and three validation processes were carried out, enabling adjustment and coordination among the team in terms of data collection.Content analysis was carried out during the month of March 2022, and the final sample, taken from the 62 Spanish communication journals indexed in Dialnet Métricas (2021), enabled an analysis of 1,581 articles and 86 contributions to special issues, including a total of 3,976 published dates.

FIGURE 1
FIGURE 1 Distribution of article receipt by month.Source: Author's creation.
Regarding publication in special issues, the most agile Spanish Communication journals are (in order): Cuadernos de informaci on y comunicaci on (ranked in Q3 in Dialnet Métricas), Comunicaci on y Hombre (ranked in Q2 in Dialnet Métricas), Revista Mediterránea de Comunicaci on (ranked in Q1 in Dialnet Métricas), and Revista Internacional de Historia de la Comunicaci on (ranked in Q4 in Dialnet Métricas).

FIGURE 2
FIGURE 2 Most common dates included in published journal articles.Source: Author's creation.

FIGURE 3
FIGURE 3Average number of days spent by stage of the publication process.Source: Authors creation.
by three journals ranked in Q1 by Dialnet Métricas (Revista Mediterránea de Comunicaci on, Icono 14, and Doxa Comunicaci on), in two ranked in Q2 by Dialnet Métricas (Vivat Academia and Digits), in one ranked in Q3 by Dialnet Métricas (Revista de Comunicaci on y Salud), and in one ranked in Q4 by Dialnet Métricas (adResearch).

TABLE 1
Units and analysis variables.
Indication of the date of 'Acceptance' Indication of the date of 'Edition/Pre-print' Indication of the date of 'Publication' Source: Authors creation.The data collected in the table of variables were shared Learned Publishing published by John Wiley & Sons Ltd on behalf of ALPSP.