Introducing - Tracademic!
In the demanding world of academia, managing paper submissions, deadlines, and revisions can feel like a never-ending battle. The stress of balancing research with administrative tasks can easily overwhelm even the most organized researcher, especially for those lacking institutional support or funding. It’s even more frustrating when review times drag on for months, or even years in some cases. Let’s face it—when it’s been nine months since your last submission, chances are you barely remember what you wrote in the paper!
I faced the same problem... With multiple papers at various stages of review across different submission platforms, I often forgot the passwords for journal websites, missed when I had planned to follow up with editors, and if one of my students submitted a paper, it was practically lost to me. So, I thought I had a great solution: an Excel spreadsheet! After all, Excel is what all the smart, organized people use, right? It worked for a while... but as the number of papers and simultaneous submissions grew, things got more complicated. I wanted to analyze my submission patterns, but even with Excel, it wasn’t so simple. I hadn't organized the data properly from the start, and a lot was missing. In the end, Excel just wasn’t enough—it came too little, too late.
So, I remembered that I can program (and AI tools are readily available and great at coding too), and I wrote a small system to track my submissions. Initially, it was a simple tool that ran locally on my computer—an academic MVP, if you will. I shared it with a few peers who found it really helpful, but they quickly asked, "Why do we need to install Linux on our laptops? Can’t we just access it like any normal website?"
Consequently, Tracademic has been burn! Tracademic is an online platform designed to help researchers and academics manage their paper submissions. It provides a centralized dashboard where users can track the status of their manuscripts, organize submission deadlines, and monitor the progress of revisions or reviews. Tracademic is aimed at simplifying the complex and often chaotic process of academic publishing, offering features like submission tracking, reminders, and status updates. It’s especially useful for those managing multiple papers across various journals and conferences, providing a clear overview of the entire submission lifecycle.
As of writing this post (September 2024), the AI features of Tracademic are still in development. However, exciting tools are on the way, such as a personal chatbot capable of answering questions like "What is my home journal?" or "I have a paper with this abstract—where is the most similar paper published?". Additionally, a machine learning-powered model will soon help refine your abstracts in your unique writing style, tailored for the specific journals in your account. This makes it the perfect time to start using Tracademic and be among the first to experience these innovative AI capabilities when they launch.