Time to publication in medical education journals: An analysis of publication timelines during COVID-19 (2019-2022)

Introduction COVID-19 changed scholarly publishing. Yet, its impact on medical education publishing is unstudied. Because journal articles and their corresponding publication timelines can influence academic success, the field needs updated publication timelines to set evidence-based expectations for academic productivity. This study attempts to answer the following research questions: did publication timelines significantly change around the time of COVID-19 and, if so, how? Methods We conducted a bibliometric study; our sample included articles published between January 2018, and December 2022, that appeared in the Medical Education Journals List-24 (MEJ-24). We clustered articles into three time-based groups (pre-COVID, COVID-overlap, and COVID-endemic), and two subject-based groups (about COVID-19 and not about COVID-19). We downloaded each article’s metadata from the National Library of Medicine and analyzed data using descriptive statistics, analysis of variance, and post-hoc tests to compare mean time differences across groups. Results Overall, time to publish averaged 300.8 days ( SD = 200.8). One-way between-groups ANOVA showed significant differences between the three time-based groups F (2, 7473) = 2150.7, p <.001. The post-hoc comparisons indicated that COVID-overlap articles took significantly longer ( n = 1470, M = 539; SD = 210.6) as compared to pre-COVID ( n = 1281; M = 302; SD = 172.5) and COVID-endemic articles ( n = 4725; M = 226; SD = 136.5). Notably, COVID-endemic articles were published in significantly less time than pre-pandemic articles, p < .001. Discussion Longer publication time was most pronounced for COVID-overlap articles. Publication timelines for COVID-endemic articles have shortened. Future research should explore how the shift in publication timelines has shaped medical education scholarship. ### Competing Interest Statement The authors have declared no competing interest. ### Funding Statement This study did not receive any funding. ### Author Declarations I confirm all relevant ethical guidelines have been followed, and any necessary IRB and/or ethics committee approvals have been obtained. Yes I confirm that all necessary patient/participant consent has been obtained and the appropriate institutional forms have been archived, and that any patient/participant/sample identifiers included were not known to anyone (e.g., hospital staff, patients or participants themselves) outside the research group so cannot be used to identify individuals. Yes I understand that all clinical trials and any other prospective interventional studies must be registered with an ICMJE-approved registry, such as ClinicalTrials.gov. I confirm that any such study reported in the manuscript has been registered and the trial registration ID is provided (note: if posting a prospective study registered retrospectively, please provide a statement in the trial ID field explaining why the study was not registered in advance). Yes I have followed all appropriate research reporting guidelines, such as any relevant EQUATOR Network research reporting checklist(s) and other pertinent material, if applicable. Yes All data produced are available online at: Costello JA, Maggio LA, Brown KR, Artino Jr AR, Durning S, Ma T. Revisiting the time to publication in medical education: An analysis of publication timelines between 2019-2022 [Data set]. Zenodo. Published 2023. Available at: