Question on "Awaiting Production Checklist" Status for Manuscript

Question

After my paper was accepted, the status in the ScholarOne manuscript center changed from accepted to "accept" with the additional "awaiting production checklist".

Now it has been about 3-4 weeks with this status after the acceptance. I would like to ask from you: does this status sounds like a normal status after acceptance? Personally, I would think and expect the status now be, for example, "checklist complete"? I have received so far only the official acceptance mail. I also would like to know how long the delay may be after acceptance to the first on-line view (the journal does not indicate the different dates of acceptance, on-line etc.)?

Answer 1

You need to find out the journal's policies on "Online First" vs. paper issue publication. The reason is because the date that a paper is accepted may be very different than the date when it is formally published, if the journal is still tightly tied to paper issues and has a long publication queue.

If the journal does online publication in advance of its paper issues, then you should be expecting production to begin shortly and a citable preprint of your paper to become available very quickly (though the final official publication date might be many months in the future).

If, on the other hand, the journal schedules its publication based on print only, and does not publish early online, then it might stay in this status for a long time, as the publication staff may not have any reason to work on the article until it is approaching the final publication date.