<p>Almost everybody knows the journal <em>Acta Informatica</em>. Some really important publications appeared there over the years.</p>

<p>Upon looking <a href="http://www.springer.com/computer/theoretical+computer+science/journal/236" rel="nofollow noreferrer">on the website</a> of the journal I noticed the following:</p>

<blockquote>
  <p>Number of days from submission of a manuscript to first decision: 15</p>
</blockquote>

<p>Does this mean that this is not a peer-review journal anymore? What is the current status of the journal? Do people submit (good) work there?</p>

<p>I find it very hard to believe that they provide feedback after 15 days.</p>

<p>I understand that this is a soft question, so feel free to comment for deletion if you think it does not comply with the guidelines.</p>

<blockquote>
  <p>Update: to somewhat confirm my initial and slight "suspicion", <a href="http://www.ams.org/notices/201510/rnoti-p1266.pdf" rel="nofollow noreferrer">here are the average times</a> from submission to "Final Acceptance" of a paper. According to this (American Mathematical Society) link, this average time for up to 2015, is 3.8 months for <em>Acta Informatica</em>, time that surely is very low for such a TCS journal and somewhat consistent with the 2016 statistics of 15 days from submission to <em>first</em> decision. </p>
</blockquote>

CC BY-SA 3.0
2017-05-12T15:19:40.877Z
The Publishing Company has no influence on the contents of the editorial decision process. So whatever is written on these journal pages is irrelevant.
Gamow
CC BY-SA 3.0
2017-05-12T15:21:53.830Z
@Gamow These are just statistics. On average, it takes 15 days after initial submission to get 1st decision. This definitely reflects, to some extent, the editorial decision process.
PsySp
CC BY-SA 3.0
2017-05-12T15:43:39.897Z
Several journals have added a quick "is this interesting and relevant enough" check as a filter before going to a full review. So many rejections could be quick while acceptances still take the usual long time, with no reduction in scholarly integrity. And the "first decision" could merely be whether it passes that filter. I have no idea whether this is true of _Acta Informatica_ but it's one possible explanation for the low number of days reported.
David Eppstein
CC BY-SA 3.0
2017-05-12T15:48:17.063Z
@DavidEppstein thanks. I thought so, but then I checked _Algorithmica_: 182 days. _Theory of Computing Systems_: 180 days. And so on. So something is going on with _Acta Informatica_. Besides of that I am also interested in what people think, in general, about this journal nowadays.
PsySp
CC BY-SA 3.0
2017-05-12T19:01:09.787Z
I don't know if this means anything, but since vol 52 they have been mostly publishing special issues.
Sasho Nikolov
CC BY-SA 3.0
2017-05-12T19:24:51.910Z
At least my criteria of where to submit a paper are only three: (1) what is the editorial board (is the portion of names I know at least, say, 1/4), (2) which audience is the journal targeting (most important), (3) fits my paper into what they want? Reviewing time, various "indexes/ratings" are completely irrelevant. And I second David Eppstein that "14 days decision" could only mean "decision after the first screening". Not of real reviewing. Many journals do this, including, say, SICOMP and others.
Stasys
CC BY-SA 3.0
2017-05-16T10:00:07.390Z
I just want to mention that the numbers published by AMS you link to are provided by the journals themselves, so there can be significant differences in how these were obtained. Btw, I clicked on the last three papers available on the homepage of Acta Informatica, and one of them was accepted in six months, the other two in about two years after submission...
domotorp
CC BY-SA 3.0
2017-05-16T10:27:17.013Z
@domotorp alright. but you do agree that the 15 days statistics seems very unrealistic. So, this either does not reflect the real situation (for example in other Springer journals this statistic seems very reasonable e.g., Algorithmica 182 days) or something is going on with the review process or they use a different way to derive this statistic than other Springer journals. btw it seems that rarely people, at least recently, choose Acta Informatica for submission. I wonder why...
PsySp
CC BY-SA 3.0
2017-05-16T13:01:00.437Z
Yes, I guess the most likely explanation is the one given by David.
domotorp
CC BY-SA 3.0
2017-05-16T13:12:21.757Z
@domotorp Let us say what David claims is correct (# days till it is decided if the paper passes the initial screening). Then this is extremely misleading (to put it mildly) since, in my opinion, this statistic (#days till first decision) means the number of days till I get the 1st set of reviews, as is also in other Springer journals. I wonder why would Acta Informatica change crudely the intuition of this statistic.
PsySp
<soft-question><paper-review><journals>
What is the current status of Acta Informatica?
PsySp
# What is the current status of Acta Informatica?

(Asked by: username_0 on 2017-05-12)

Almost everybody knows the journal *Acta Informatica*. Some really important publications appeared there over the years.

Upon looking [on the website](http://www.springer.com/computer/theoretical+computer+science/journal/236) of the journal I noticed the following:

> Number of days from submission of a manuscript to first decision: 15

Does this mean that this is not a peer-review journal anymore? What is the current status of the journal? Do people submit (good) work there?

I find it very hard to believe that they provide feedback after 15 days.

I understand that this is a soft question, so feel free to comment for deletion if you think it does not comply with the guidelines.

> Update: to somewhat confirm my initial and slight "suspicion", [here are the average times](http://www.ams.org/notices/201510/rnoti-p1266.pdf) from submission to "Final Acceptance" of a paper. According to this (American Mathematical Society) link, this average time for up to 2015, is 3.8 months for *Acta Informatica*, time that surely is very low for such a TCS journal and somewhat consistent with the 2016 statistics of 15 days from submission to *first* decision.

**Tags:** soft-question, paper-review, journals

> **Comments:**
> **username_1**: The Publishing Company has no influence on the contents of the editorial decision process. So whatever is written on these journal pages is irrelevant.  
> **username_0**: @username_1 These are just statistics. On average, it takes 15 days after initial submission to get 1st decision. This definitely reflects, to some extent, the editorial decision process.  
> **username_2**: Several journals have added a quick "is this interesting and relevant enough" check as a filter before going to a full review. So many rejections could be quick while acceptances still take the usual long time, with no reduction in scholarly integrity. And the "first decision" could merely be whether it passes that filter. I have no idea whether this is true of _Acta Informatica_ but it's one possible explanation for the low number of days reported.  
> **username_0**: @DavidEppstein thanks. I thought so, but then I checked _Algorithmica_: 182 days. _Theory of Computing Systems_: 180 days. And so on. So something is going on with _Acta Informatica_. Besides of that I am also interested in what people think, in general, about this journal nowadays.  
> **username_3**: I don't know if this means anything, but since vol 52 they have been mostly publishing special issues.  
> **username_4**: At least my criteria of where to submit a paper are only three: (1) what is the editorial board (is the portion of names I know at least, say, 1/4), (2) which audience is the journal targeting (most important), (3) fits my paper into what they want? Reviewing time, various "indexes/ratings" are completely irrelevant. And I second username_2 that "14 days decision" could only mean "decision after the first screening". Not of real reviewing. Many journals do this, including, say, SICOMP and others.  
> **username_5**: I just want to mention that the numbers published by AMS you link to are provided by the journals themselves, so there can be significant differences in how these were obtained. Btw, I clicked on the last three papers available on the homepage of Acta Informatica, and one of them was accepted in six months, the other two in about two years after submission...  
> **username_0**: @username_5 alright. but you do agree that the 15 days statistics seems very unrealistic. So, this either does not reflect the real situation (for example in other Springer journals this statistic seems very reasonable e.g., Algorithmica 182 days) or something is going on with the review process or they use a different way to derive this statistic than other Springer journals. btw it seems that rarely people, at least recently, choose Acta Informatica for submission. I wonder why...  
> **username_5**: Yes, I guess the most likely explanation is the one given by David.  
> **username_0**: @username_5 Let us say what David claims is correct (# days till it is decided if the paper passes the initial screening). Then this is extremely misleading (to put it mildly) since, in my opinion, this statistic (#days till first decision) means the number of days till I get the 1st set of reviews, as is also in other Springer journals. I wonder why would Acta Informatica change crudely the intuition of this statistic.  

---

## 0 answers

