If you were redesigning the publishing process, you wouldn’t design it how it is today.

Many authors submit to three to four journals before they finally find a home for their article. You probably don’t find this surprising or shocking. It’s something that we just accept as part of the process of getting published. But let’s stop and think about that situation for a moment.

What is the impact on authors? Peer reviewers? Editors?

With three peer reviewers per journal, that’s 12 sets of peer review. The author has to reformat their article at least three times, too, to meet each journal’s formatting requirements. They have to resubmit through the editorial office system, re-entering the title of their article, and copying and pasting their abstract into the specific box. And the editor needs to find three more expert peer reviewers who have not already said “no” to the previous journal, or even the one before that.  

There’s a better way, and it’s easier than you might think to make this whole process simpler for everyone.

The Developmental Science Publishing Network that launches this month is the result of a unique collaboration among Wiley, journal editors, and learned societies across 14 titles. “I was listening to a publishing talk at a conference when the idea for this network first hit me. A researcher was telling us all about the challenges and frustrations she faced when trying to publish her work. Being rejected, reformatting, and resubmitting her article, waiting for the next set of reviews. This all takes time and effort. So I started to think, if we were creating the best author experience possible, what would we do differently? The editors and societies involved in our Developmental Science Publishing Network have the shared ambition to help authors find a home for their research as quickly and painlessly as possible. If you have good research in psychology, we will help you get it published” explains Sarah Oates, Senior Editorial Director at Wiley.

How Transferring Works

Altogether, the 14 journals involved in the publishing network reject nearly 3,000 articles a year. Many of these articles are later published elsewhere.  As a result of this new collaboration, journals can now refer an article submission to a more suitable journal within the network through an expedited transfer process. Authors can decide whether to accept the referral, with the further option to transfer their paper with or without revisions. Any reviews associated with the paper will be transferred with the manuscript too, relieving pressure on peer reviewers and eliminating duplicate invitations to review. 

While a transfer does not guarantee acceptance, it helps authors find a route to publication more quickly and easily. Most of the journals in the publishing network also offer free format submission (which reduces formatting requirements to a bare minimum), and a new AI system we are rolling out later this year will make resubmission through ScholarOne even easier by auto-completing much of the data on behalf of the author.

The networks are still new, and already more than 500 authors have been rejected and offered a transfer and nearly 300 authors have accepted the offer.

Rebecca Harkin, Psychology & Education Publisher at Wiley says: “And this is just the start. We’re looking carefully at every step of the authoring and peer review process, and exciting plans to continue streamlining and improving the experience are in development. We also plan to add journals to the network after the initial launch, building further on the Developmental Science Publishing Network and reaching into adjacent areas.  Further Publishing Networks in psychology and education are also planned.”

The journals involved in the Developmental Science Publishing Network are:

“SRCD is pleased to partner with Wiley on the launch of the Developmental science publishing network,” said Martha Zaslow, Ph.D., Interim Executive Director of Society for Research in Child Development. “The Network is an important innovation across journals to improve scholarly publishing. We expect to see such benefits of the initiative as a simplified submission process for authors and reduced workload for reviewers.”

Pat Levitt, Editor, Mind, Brain, and Education said “All of the journals in the Network are dedicated to publishing the highest quality research in developmental science, and facilitating the author editorial experience. The collaborative nature of this effort is a wonderful advance for the member journals and the learned societies with which they are affiliated.”

Amanda Morris, Editor in Chief of Journal of Research on Adolescence said “This is a great opportunity for developmental science journals to work together to support authors by providing multiple pathways for publishing their work.”

How To Learn More

If you’re interested in participating in or launching a publishing network in your discipline, contact your Journal Publishing Manager or Sarah Oates (soates@wiley.com) to find out more.