Yesterday a colleague in Nepal notified me that the publication of our latest paper has been delayed. This paper ‘Writing and publishing a reflective paper: Three case studies’ [1] is another method-type paper on aspects of academic writing and publishing published by BU academics and FHSS Visiting Faculty. A delay in getting in print is not uncommon in academic publishing, but usually the justification is that reviewers are sitting on the manuscript and not returning their report, or the journal editor can’t find academics to volunteer as reviewers, or the editor is ill. Occasionally the journal has too few papers to publish the next issue yet with your accepted paper in it, but this time the excuse was ever rarer. 
We had submitted our paper to a brand new journal. A research collaborator in Kathmandu had asked me to submit a paper for the journal’s inaugural issue, which we did as we saw this a part of our role in academic capacity building in Nepal. The delay in publishing this journal is the shortage of ISSN [International Standard Serial Number] numbers in Nepal. Every good academic journal across the globe will have registered for a unique ISSN number [2]. Apparently the office issuing ISSN numbers in Paris head office has not delivered ISSNs to Nepal, and according to my colleague “many journals are waiting for a number …It’s not good news for the academic writers and scholars but we’re really sorry for late due to the unavailability of ISSN.”
Prof. Edwin van Teijlingen
Centre for Midwifery, Maternal and Perinatal Health
References:
- Arnold, R., Ireland, J., Mahato, P., van Teijlingen, E., (2022) Writing and publishing a reflective paper: Three case studies, Welham College Journal (accepted for publication)
- van Teijlingen, E.R., Dhakal Adhikari, S., Regmi, P.R., van Teijlingen, A., Aryal, N., Panday, S. (2021). Publishing, identifiers & metrics: Playing the numbers game. Health Prospect, 20(1).