Relationship between the duration of peer-review, publication decision, and agreement among reviewers in three Chilean journals

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Aim: To investigate the relationship between time taken for peer review, publication decision, and level of agreement among reviewers.Methods: The average time for eight stages of the peer review process was estimated for 369 peer review processes of three international Chilean journals published in Spanish in the fields of the humanities, engineering and university teaching. According to the combination of recommendations made by reviewers, each process was classified as having total, partial or low agreement. Data for each stage were grouped according to level of agreement and decision type.Results: Total peer review time was greater for articles that were accepted. For all three of the journals examined, publication period was the longest stage, and time taken to select referees was longest for the humanities journal. Partial agreement between reviewers was related to longer publication times in the university teaching journal, while there was no relationship between reviewer agreement and publication time in the engineering journal.Conclusions: Duration of the peer review process was related to decision type. Relationship between level of agreement between reviewers and the duration of the various stages of the publication process was found to vary between disciplines.