what have we learned since we launched conpher?

The career experience of conpher contributors to date

60% of our contributors so far are experienced academics – ie having gained their PhD more than 5 years ago. These demographics may change over time, but we are delighted to have made a connection with our most experienced colleagues!

We asked contributors to list the key reasons for selecting which journal to publish in.

Again, these figures will change as conpher grows, but the “Quality” or “Impact” of a journal is still very important to the majority of our contributors. It was interesting to see colleague recommendation so high – as that neatly summarises the aims of conpher!

conpher is collecting illuminating facts and figures for our community to share.

For example, it is interesting to note that the majority of rejected articles are offered an alternative title to publish in by the same publisher. This says a lot about the importance of “quantity” of content to publishers these days. But what we found fascinating was only 1 in 6 authors were taking that option. The vast majority were selecting to find an alternative journal with a different publisher.

Speed of publication is still very important

We will be looking more closely at these statistics as time progresses, possibly to examine if there is a difference in requirements and performances across different subject areas. But reading our comments replies, many contributors feel that the time taken from submission to acceptance is still too long. Does this reflect on the quality of peer-review, or poor manuscript management by the editorial staff? conpher wants to help the community with its expectation levels – to at least see what others are experiencing.

Publication times after acceptance can be relatively rapid!

With electronic publication and advance release of articles prior to journal issues, publishers can be praised for not delaying publication any further than necessary. We hope to see the average time of just over 1 month fall, and for the journals taking over 6 months to publish after acceptance – please review your processes!