Version approved October 4, 2019 by the ISMTE Professional Development Education & Standards Committee

Report 4: Time From Submission to First Decision for Externally Reviewed and Not Externally Reviewed Papers

Data to Include • The median number of days should be reported. The median for each article type for each year can be

calculated in Excel. • Report on only the original submissions. Determine what “submission” means for your journal: Is it the time

the author started the submission process or the time that the submission reached the editorial office? Do you want to remove invited/commissioned manuscripts and/or manuscripts that were withdrawn?

• A coefficient of variation also should be included. The median of all included numbers of days under review and the standard deviation of all included numbers of days under review can be calculated in Excel. The calculated standard deviation can then be divided by the calculated median to produce a coefficient of variation that can be used to set the error bars. Note: This is a simple and easy to compute method. There are more accurate methods, but they would require a tremendous amount of work. This method is acceptable for the purposes of these reports.

• Using at least 3 years of data is desirable for comparisons.

Best Way to Display the Data • When plotted using Excel, the data is best presented as a bar chart of the median numbers of days with upper

error bars. The error bars should be assumed to extend the same distance in the lower direction, but including the lower bars on the figure creates a noisy appearance - see instructions below

• Exact values printed with bars are desirable. • A line graph also can display the data and simplify visual comparisons of changes over time - see instructions

below • Article types with limited data (i.e., data for only one year) should be excluded from the line graph. • Add a Note to the chart, such as, Note. Date of “Submission” was the date the manuscript was received in the

editorial office. Data are for manuscripts submitted during the given year. OR Note. Date of “Submission” was the date the manuscript was received in the editorial office. Data are for manuscripts submitted during the given year. Data shown are for submissions that received a decision of accept (e.g., Letters to the Editor) or reject (e.g., does not fit the journal’s scope). Submissions that received a revision decision without external review are not included.

If you are presenting your completed report in PPTX, you can follow these instructions to embed your raw data in your report: Click on the paste option “Keep Source Formatting & Embed Workbook (K)”. Please note that when the data is embedded, the data changes in the current PPTX will not affect the original source file. Link to Editorial Manager Webinar for Creating Report 4 Link to ScholarOne Webinar for Creating Report 4

Version approved October 4, 2019 by the ISMTE Professional Development Education Committee

Excel Instructions You will need the median number of days that articles were under review for each article type and year. If this number cannot be retrieved from the journal management system, it can be computed using the =MEDIAN function in Excel. Select all “number of days” cells for a particular article type and year and include these cell letters/numbers in the median formula. Example of obtaining median of consecutive cells in a column: =MEDIAN(B2:B38)

The median data should be arranged in a table with a row for each article type and a column for each year.

Version approved October 4, 2019 by the ISMTE Professional Development Education Committee

Bar Chart 1) Select the data you want to plot, including the article type names and the year numbers. 2) From the Insert menu, click the Column icon and select the type you prefer. A bar chart should appear.

3) If the year data is not represented on the x-axis of the graph, right click the plot and select “Select Data.” Click “Switch Row/Column” and then click the OK button.

4) For a less busy plot, you can remove the horizontal lines by clicking on one of the inner lines. This should select all of the horizontal lines. Press “Delete” to remove the lines.

Version approved October 4, 2019 by the ISMTE Professional Development Education Committee

5) You can change the color scheme of the plot by clicking on the Chart Design link in the top menu and choosing Change Colors. You can change the design by choosing from the icon list.

6) To add a title for the plot, click on the “Chart Title” in the plot and type your title into the box. 7) To add labels for the axes, click on the “Chart Design” link, then click on the “Add Chart Element” icon and

choose “Axis Title” from the drop-down menu. Choose each axis and type the title into the box that appears for the x- and y- axes.

8) To include exact values in the center of each bar (to leave room for error bars in the plot), click on the “Chart Design” link, then click on the “Add Chart Element” icon and choose “Data Labels” from the first drop-down menu and “Center” from the second drop-down menu.

Version approved October 4, 2019 by the ISMTE Professional Development Education Committee

9) To add error bars, a coefficient of variation must be calculated. First, compute the median for all numbers of days under review for each article type (all years combined; see below; some experts recommend using the mean instead of the median).

Version approved October 4, 2019 by the ISMTE Professional Development Education & Standards Committee

10) Next, compute the standard deviation for all numbers of days under review for each article type, all years

combined. This can be done by applying the Excel =STDEV function to this data in the same manner the median function was applied (see above).

11) After obtaining the standard deviation and the median, divide the standard deviation by the median (standard deviation/median). The resulting percentage will be used to set the error bars.

12) To create error bars, highlight one of the article types by clicking on one of the bars in your graph, then click on the “Chart Design” link, then click on the “Add Chart Element” icon and choose “Error Bars” from the first drop-down menu and “Percentage” from the second drop-down menu.

Version approved October 4, 2019 by the ISMTE Professional Development Education Committee

13) Go back to the “Error Bars” and click on the “More Error Bars” option and enter the

Coefficient of Variation percentage you calculated for the article type (e.g., if you calculated 0.15, type 15.0% into the box). You will need to repeat the above for all article types. The result is your final chart.

Version approved October 4, 2019 by the ISMTE Professional Development Education Committee

Note. Date of “Submission” was the date the manuscript was received in the editorial office. Data are for manuscripts submitted during the given year.

Line Graph 1) Select the data you want to plot, including the article type names and the year numbers. If

you have only one year of data for an article type, do not include this article type in the graph.

2) From the Insert menu, click the Line icon and select the type you prefer. A line graph should appear.

Version approved October 4, 2019 by the ISMTE Professional Development Education Committee

3) If the year data is not represented on the x-axis of the graph, right click the plot and select “Select Data.” Click “Switch Row/Column.”

4) For a less busy plot, you can remove the horizontal lines by clicking on one of the inner lines. This should select all of the horizontal lines. Press “Delete” to remove the lines.

5) You can change the color scheme of the plot by clicking on the Chart Design link in the top menu and choosing Change Colors. You can change the design by choosing from the icon list.

6) To add a title for the plot, click on the “Chart Title” in the plot and type your title into the box.

7) To add labels for the axes, click on the “Chart Design” link, then click on the “Add Chart Element” icon and choose “Axis Title” from the drop-down menu. Choose each axis and type the title into the box that appears for the x- and y- axes.

Version approved October 4, 2019 by the ISMTE Professional Development Education Committee

Note. Date of “Submission” was the date the manuscript was received in the editorial office. Data are for manuscripts submitted during the given year.

Comparisons: • Heights of bars and median number of days from submission to first decision should be

compared. • In the line graph, changes over time can be visually compared. • It will be difficult to generate sound statistical inferences using Excel when the data will differ

from query to query. These visual comparisons should be sufficient for current needs.

Interpretation of Data • The relative heights of the bars demonstrate differences in the median number of days from

submission to first decision of each article type between years. • Two-thirds of newly submitted manuscripts should be expected to fall within the span of the

error bars (plus and minus). • In the line graph, the changes in the lines demonstrate changes in time from submission to first

decision across years.

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Time from Submission to First Decisionwith External Review

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Version approved October 4, 2019 by the ISMTE Professional Development Education Committee

FAQs

Why should the median number of days be reported for turnaround?

An average is used to express the ‘central tendency’ of a set of numbers – it gives you an overall impression of the dataset without having to read the whole thing. The most commonly used average is the mean, for which you add together all of the numbers in the dataset and then divide the result by the total number of entries. If your data are ‘normally distributed’ (think of a bell shape on a graph with the bulge in the middle), it makes sense to give the mean because it will fall in the middle and be the most common number. However, if you’ve got some data points that are wildly different to most of the others, the mean will be pulled in one direction or another (‘skewed’) and it will no longer be giving you a very useful understanding of your dataset. ‘Time-to-event data’, (i.e., turnaround times), are almost always skewed by a few long delays and they will make the mean a biased impression of the dataset. (We can all think of papers that got stuck in the process for much longer than usual because an editor or reviewer has gone AWOL.) The median, which is the middle number in the dataset, is a better way of representing a set of numbers that includes extremes that would skew a mean.

What is a coefficient of variation and why is it useful? The coefficient of variation is intended to represent the variation in terms of a proportion (percentage) of the value. If the coefficient of variation is 10%, then the variation around the median is 10% of its value. Therefore it describes the variability relative to the median at a glance, without having to read through the dataset to look for the lowest and highest numbers. Another way of saying this is that it shows you the consistency of your data. If you aim to give authors a decision on their paper within 90 days of submission and your median is less than that, you might think everything is running smoothly. However, the average might not be showing you a small group of papers that are taking 120 days to reach a decision because there are some papers that take much less than 90 days and they are balancing them out. That small group of delayed papers still needs attention and the coefficient of variation will show you that they are there. You can mark the coefficients of variation on your graph using error bars, to show the spread of your data.