Importance of Author Profiles in Analysis of Satisfaction Questionnaires in Trakya University Journal of Natural Sciences

Introduction: Authors are one of the most important actors of scholarly publishing but opinions of these actors about publishing processes almost never reach to the editors. On the other hand, editors can best evaluate their journal processes through author evaluations. The most reliable way of receiving author evaluations is achieved by means of unbiased and buoyant answered questionnaires. Materials and Methods:Trakya University Journal of Natural Sciences (TUJNS) has been published in the field of life sciences since 2000 and has recently put great efforts for institutional structuring. Within this context, we arranged a satisfaction questionnaire including 11 questions to receive evaluations of authors who submitted manuscripts to the journal in 2018-2021. In the questionnaire, participants were asked to answer the questions by choosing one of the five options given to them on a numerical scale from 1 to 5; 5 represents high pleasure and 1 represents low pleasure, and 3 was ignored. For the research, questionnaires were sent to 176 authors (99 female 77 male). Authors who were editorial board members of TUJNS and those who submitted manuscripts with Trakya University as their address were excluded. The questionnaire included no personal information and only asked if the submitted manuscripts were published or not. The study therefore aimed to determine whether the psychological states of authors with published and/or unpublished manuscripts affected their preferences to share their satisfactions. In 2018, since foreign authors did not submit manuscripts to the journal, participation and satisfaction survey data were not provided. Results:The participation rate of authors with published manuscripts was as high as 50% but it was only 25% for authors whose manuscripts were rejected. Authors with published manuscripts answered the questions with a high rate of satisfaction by giving 87% of their answers with 4 and 5, butthe rate of answers with high satisfaction of authors with rejected manuscripts was relatively low at 67%. Nine percent of the authors whose manuscripts were accepted and 19% of the authors whose manuscripts were rejected expressed low satisfaction by giving 1 and 2 points to the questions. While the participation of native authors whose articles were accepted was high, that of foreign authors was quite low. On the other hand, the situation is the opposite for the authors whose articles were rejected. While the satisfaction of both native and foreign authors whose articles were accepted was high, the satisfaction of those whose articles were rejected was found to be low. Conclusion:Although satisfaction questionnaires are important feedbacks for scientific journals, the high rate of dissatisfaction of authors with rejected manuscripts should be paid attention. In addition, the general tendency of authors with published manuscripts to give answers with high satisfaction values reduces the reliability of questionnaires to reveal the real thoughts of participants about the journals. The best way of benefiting such questionnaires is to repeat them regularly on an annual scale and make judgements by considering the state of each case in the questionnaire through consecutive years.