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I am trying to decide on the journal where I want to submit my article. Besides the ranking of the journal, what I care is the speed with which the journal review articles. OK, I do not accept a super-fast review process from any journal, but sometimes it can be painful to wait too long as many of you have already experienced.

I know that some journals shares information about dates when the articles was first received. I can use this information to make an estimation about the length of review process. But, many others do not share any information about this.

So, I wonder if there are some ways to have an idea to publish an article in a journal before submitting?

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    Elsevier shares average review time and publishing time for each journal. Other than that (and if papers don't have recieved/accepted dates), there is no other way.
    – mystupid_acct
    Commented Jun 27, 2017 at 16:14
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    Elsevier also plays tricks with "reject and resubmit" to make those times look smaller.
    – Federico Poloni
    Commented Jun 27, 2017 at 16:32
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    In my field there is a wiki for this: econjobrumors.com/journals.php
    – Dawn
    Commented Jun 27, 2017 at 16:40
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    Reviewing speed depends on the number of reviewers that need to be contacted, and how fast they reply. Well-written articles get reviewed faster, also articles which fit very well into the journals field of interest and status (don't be overzealous with the IF). A good amount of luck is also helpful, and well-known names behind your own in the list of authors.
    – Karl
    Commented Jun 28, 2017 at 21:04
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    @renakre It's very uncommon at least in natural science to do double blind reviewing. aps.org/publications/apsnews/201507/double-blind.cfm And unless you're in a field that is totally overrun, there is a high chance that any reviewer can identify you 100% positive after a five minute websearch. Unless you don't go to conferences and are generally a total shut-in.
    – Karl
    Commented Jun 29, 2017 at 15:49

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Some journals are quite open and self-report submitted texts, rejection rate, time of the review process etc. For instance, one of the leading journals in my field (political science) does this every year here
Maybe there is something similar in your field of comp. science and educational science?!
Nice overviews about journals and their peer review process can be found on 2 websites: https://scirev.sc/ - you can choose your discipline or the specific journal. They don't list every journal but in some disciplines, they are quite good. Additionally and more related to open access journals is http://www.qoam.eu . As far as I know, on both sites, former authors are invited to assess the peer review process and so on. This often gives a good insight into the real publication time

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In mathematics, the AMS publishes an annual report in the AMS Notices with data on how long journals take from submission to final acceptance (in addition to other things). The most recent edition of this is here.

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I will find out if I know someone who has published in that journal and ask them about their experience with the peer-review process. They can tell you if it took longer than expected, if there were any problems with the review process, or if there were more than three reviewers (some journals will have up to five, which may lead to a longer review). If you don't know someone who has published in that journal recently, you can always ask a senior researcher if they have heard anything about the journal. Many journals also publish in individual articles the dates of initial submission and final acceptance, which also gives you an idea of the timeline.

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  • The number of reviewers is not usually fixed for a journal, afaik, but increases when the editor is not really convinced with your article and/or gets feedback with mixed opinions.
    – Karl
    Commented Jun 28, 2017 at 21:10
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Check the website Academic Accelerator. I think this Review Speed database includes more than 30000 Journals.

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