Results of the Second PeerJ Author Survey

It is nearly two years since we began publishing PeerJ articles since our launch in February 2013, and with the recent announcement that PeerJ is to be included in the Web of Science we felt it would be a good time to take stock and conduct another Author Survey to see how we are doing (the first one was conducted in Sept 2013).

On November 3rd 2014, a survey invitation was sent to every corresponding author who had received a final decision (of any type – including rejections) since Sep 5th 2013 through Oct 31st 2014. We had a 51% response rate which is a very good response rate for a survey of this nature. The survey closed on November 12th 2014. We are thrilled to find that almost every single metric has been improved upon since last year’s survey which we believe is validation of the quality of our publishing process.

The headline finding is that (quite literally) 100% of published authors would recommend that their colleagues submit to PeerJ, which is up from 94% in our first author survey.

We also found that 95% of responding authors rated their overall PeerJ experience as either “one of the best publishing experiences I have ever had” (52%) or “a good experience” (43%). We are extremely proud of these results and thank our authors for this feedback!

Going further, 97% of authors intend to submit to us again should they have a suitable article.

Of those authors who had been published already, 94% rated their production experience as either “extremely good – one of the best I have experienced” (50%) or “good” (44%).

As to the speed and effectiveness of the editorial process, 87% reported that their time to first decision was either “extremely fast” (30%) or “fast” (57%). Note: We are currently getting first decisions to authors in just 22 days (median).

We also encouraged free text feedback giving authors an opportunity to tell us what they think, and we’ll be using this to inform all of our services for future authors. From that feedback, here are some great quotes from our authors:

‘Fast decision process, preprint option, open access, interesting papers being published, innovative platform’

‘An open access journal of good quality and very reasonable costs.’

‘Fast peer review, easy to submit to, open access, extremely cheap, and because overall PeerJ is a great step forward for scholarly publishing and worth supporting.’

‘Cost, speed, transparency and the fact that reviews are part of the permanent record of the paper so that individuals can evaluate the quality and value of reviews on their own.’

‘Fair, fast, and inexpensive.’

‘Cheap OA from a reputable source with solid peer review, plus Web of Science indexing helps!’

‘I particularly like that the peer review history is published alongside the paper. This encourages transparency both in the authors and reviewers comments and responses. I would highlight the speed of the peer review process as well and the relatively low cost compared to PLOS One, for example.’

‘Good quality fast, open access, cheap, prestigious editorial board, great design’

‘Friendliness – I felt that PeerJ was “with” me rather than “against” me.’

‘PeerJ provides a pioneering publishing system, high quality research and accessible to all. Love the PeerJ pre-print idea.’

‘PeerJ will be the leader in the future.’

‘Fast publication, great peer review, good customer service, open source, article metrics.’

‘Super affordable, but with quality you can’t get anywhere else.’

So, all in all, we received some fantastic feedback from some of our authors, and we thank them for taking the time to provide it. Their comments will help us shape the future of the journal, and all of our services for future authors.

We know that there is always room for improvement, and we strive for everyone to have the best possible experience at PeerJ, but we believe that these results are testament to our vision to provide a maximum publishing experience at minimal cost to authors.

Try the PeerJ publication experience for yourself – submit your work today!