Publications on COVID-19 at the AABC

For some years now, COVID-19 has turned the world upside down (e.g., Kellner 2020a), impacting society in almost all segments, from education (e.g., Pokhrel & Chhetri 2021) and mental health (e.g., Ravens-Sieberer et al. 2022), to matters related to sustainable development (e.g., Wang & Huang 2021) and economy (e.g., Zongyun et al. 2022). While the pandemic is not over, it is increasingly being brought under control as vaccination progresses, with safety and restriction measures gradually being lifted.

Another area that was also tremendously impacted by the pandemic was scientific publications. Side effects ranged from displacing research of other scientific fields (e.g., Riccaboni & Verginer 2022) to severe editorial problems (e.g., Shimray 2022). Here I briefly examine the publications on COVID-19 received by the Annals of the Brazilian Academy of Sciences (AABC).

In 2020, a total of 43 manuscripts were received in two distinct categories: articles and letters. Most of the 24 articles were rejected (16), five were published in 2021 and three in 2022 (not analyzed here). Regarding letters, 19 were received, 10 were rejected, eight were published in 2020 and one in 2021 (not considered here). The overall rejection rate of the COVID-19 manuscripts received by the AABC was 60% (67% and 53% regarding articles and letters, respectively). All five articles were recovered by the Journal Citations Reports (JCR) and considered in the recently published Impact Factor (IF) of the AABC (AABC IF-2021). Letters are not normally evaluated by JCR, but surprisingly the letter by Hipólito et al. (2019) was included and received four citations (Journal Citations Reports 2022). In the Web of Science (WoS) database, all publications in a journal are expected to be listed, including letters. Interestingly, Letieri & Furtado (2020) and Mattioli & Crespilho (2020) were not found. Unfortunately, the situation where publications can simply “disappear” seems to be more common than one would expect (e.g., Kellner 2020b), with deleterious effects on a journal’s and researcher´s metrics, something that should be on the minds of the “publishing industry” (Kellner 2020c).

Although the number of published manuscripts on COVID-19 by the AABC are too limited for any detailed analysis, it should be noted that all articles were cited at least once in 2021, with the most cited article receiving 10 citations in JCR (11 in WoS), followed by two with three citations each. A similar pattern was observed regarding letters, with only one without citation in 2021 and the most cited also receiving 10 citations, followed by one with four citations. The five articles published received a total of 19 citations and if only these were considered, the IF of the AABC would be 3.800, well above the AABC IF-2021 (1.811). The six published letters considered in WoS received a total of 21 citations in 2021, corresponding to an IF of 3.500.

The main conclusions of this brief survey are that very few researchers working on COVID-19 considered the AABC to publish their results, but the few accepted publications contributed and raised the AABC IF-2021.

REFERENCES

• HIPÓLITO J, DIELE-VIEGAS LM, CORDEIRO TEF, SALES LP, MEDEIROS A, DEEGAN KR & LEITE L. 2020. Unwrapping the long-term impacts of COVID-19 pandemic on Brazilian academic mothers: the urgency of short, medium, and long-term measures. An Acad Bras Cienc 92: e20201292. DOI 10.1590/0001-3765202020201292.
• JOURNAL CITATION REPORTS. 2022. Journal Citation Reports Science Edition 2021, Clarivate Analytics. https://jcr-clarivate.ez29.periodicos.capes.gov.br/jcr-jp/journal-profile?journal=AN%20ACAD%20BRAS%20CIENC&year=2021&fromPage=%2Fjcr%2Fhome Accessed on October 5, 2022.
  » https://jcr-clarivate.ez29.periodicos.capes.gov.br/jcr-jp/journal-profile?journal=AN%20ACAD%20BRAS%20CIENC&year=2021&fromPage=%2Fjcr%2Fhome Accessed on October 5, 2022
• KELLNER AWA. 2020a. Living in pandemic times. An Acad Bras Cienc 92: e20200725. DOI 10.1590/0001-3765202020200725.
• KELLNER AWA. 2020b. Development of Agrarian Sciences at the AABC with comments on impact and performance evaluations. An Acad Bras Cienc 92: e202092S1. DOI 10.1590/0001-3765202092S1.
• KELLNER AWA. 2020c. A brief summary of the impact and performance of different scientific fields at the AABC. An Acad Bras Cienc 92: e2020924. DOI 10.1590/0001-37652020924.
• LETIERI RV & FURTADO GE. 2020. Physical exercise during coronavirus disease (COVID-19): Recommendations to remaining active in periods of confinement. An Acad Bras Cienc 92: e20200691. DOI 10.1590/0001-3765202020200691.
• MATTIOLI IA & CRESPILHO FN. 2020. Problems of Interpreting Diagnostic Tests for SARS-CoV-2: Analytical Chemistry Concerns. An Acad Bras Cienc 92: e20201208. DOI 10.1590/0001-3765202020201208.
• POKHREL S & CHHETRI R. 2021. A Literature Review on Impact of COVID-19 Pandemic on Teaching and Learning. High Educ Future 8(1): 133-141. DOI: 10.1177/2347631120983481.
• RAVENS-SIEBERER U, KAMAN A, ERHART M, DEVINE J, SCHLACK R & OTTO C. 2022. Impact of the COVID-19 pandemic on quality of life and mental health in children and adolescents in Germany. Eur Child Adolesc Psychiatry 31: 879-889. DOI 10.1007/s00787-021-01726-5.
• Riccaboni M & Verginer L. 2022. The impact of the COVID-19 pandemic on scientific research in the life sciences. PLoS ONE 17(2): e0263001. DOI 10.1371/journal.pone.0263001.
• SHIMRAY SR. 2022. Research done wrong: A comprehensive investigation of retracted publications in COVID-19. Account Res, p. 1-14. DOI: 10.1080/08989621.2021.2014327.
• WANG Q & HUANG R. 2021. The impact of COVID-19 pandemic on sustainable development goals –A survey. Environ Res 202: 111637. DOI 10.1016/j.envres.2021.111637.
• Zongyun L, Panteha Farmanesh DK & Rania I. 2022. A comparative analysis of COVID-19 and global financial crises: evidence from US economy. Economic Research-Ekonomska Istraživanja 35: 2427-2441. DOI: 10.1080/1331677X.2021.1952640.

Publication Dates

• Publication in this collection
  25 Nov 2022
• Date of issue
  2022