Abstract

Beginning in February 2020, COVID-19-related stay at home orders and workplace shutdowns worldwide have disrupted personal and professional lives, including those of aquatic scientists. Manuscript submission and peer reviewing data from journals may be indicators of productivity impacts among aquatic scientists. We tested four null hypotheses: the COVID-19 disruption has had no effect on (i) the number of submissions to journals, or (ii) the geographic region in which the corresponding author is based, nor on the peer review process in terms of (iii) acceptance rate of requests to review and (iv) time in review. We used data provided by seven leading aquatic science journals covering the period 2009–2020 and representing 32 756 submissions. Submission differences varied between journals and were lower than expected in March 2020, but due to increases in subsequent months, there was no overall change in the number of submissions during the COVID-19 disruption months of February–June 2020. Geographic patterns in the number of submissions varied more by journal than by region, with both higher and lower numbers of submissions relative to expected numbers. Acceptance rates of requests to review were ∼2% lower overall; however, time in review declined by an average of 5 days relative to earlier years, showing that those scientists undertaking reviews did them more quickly during the COVID-19 disruption. Collectively, these results show that the overall productivity of the aquatic science community, as measured by publications and reviewing rates and times, has thus far only been slightly disrupted, although the impacts will vary greatly among individuals depending on life circumstances. The breadth and longevity of this disruption are unprecedented, making it important to continue to assess the relative impacts across a wide demographic range of aquatic scientists and to consider approaches to allow those differentially affected to recover to pre-COVID-19 levels of productivity.

中文翻译：

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出版和同行评审是COVID-19对水生科学界生产力影响的指标

摘要

从2020年2月开始，与COVID-19相关的居留命令和工作场所关闭在全球范围内已经破坏了个人和职业生活，包括水生科学家的生活。来自期刊的稿件提交和同行评审数据可能是水生科学家对生产力影响的指标。我们测试了四个无效假设：COVID-19的中断对（i）期刊投稿的数量或（ii）通讯作者所处的地理区域没有任何影响，也不影响同行评审过程的以下方面： （iii）审查要求的接受率和（iv）审查时间。我们使用了2009年至2020年期间由7家领先的水生科学期刊提供的数据，代表了32 756项投稿。期刊之间的投稿差异各不相同，低于2020年3月的预期，但是由于随后几个月的增加，在2020年2月至2020年6月的COVID-19干扰月份期间，投稿数量没有总体变化。投稿数量的地域格局差异较大，期刊比地区差异更大，相对于预期数量而言，提交的数量更少。总体而言，审核请求的接受率降低了约2％；但是，与以前相比，审查时间平均减少了5天，这表明进行COVID-19破坏的科学家进行审查的速度更快。总的来说，这些结果表明，以出版物和审查速度和时间来衡量，水生科学界的整体生产力迄今仅受到了轻微破坏，尽管根据生活条件的不同，个人的影响差异很大。这种破坏的广度和寿命是史无前例的，因此必须继续评估广泛的水生科学家的相对影响，并考虑采取各种方法使那些受到不同影响的人恢复到COVID-19以前的生产力水平。