Researcher Needs: What's Missing for You?
This survey takes about 15 minutes and asks how researchers publish, get recognized, review and share work. Your answers will help shape a new platform for researchers. It is research, not a sales pitch, and there are no right or wrong answers.
Before you start...
Who is running this: Chirag Bansal, cbansal4@uwo.ca
Participation is voluntary. You can skip any question and stop at any time.
Anonymous by default. We do not ask for your name. An email address is requested only at the end, and only if you choose to give one for follow-up.
How answers are used: to decide what to build and to report summary results. Individual answers will not be published with your name.
We will be using this data for product validation to build a platform for you, for researchers. By continuing, you agree to take part on these terms.
Short on time? Answer Section A, then skip to Q51 at the end and type whatever concerns you most, in any form. Rough notes are fine. No call is needed: every open question accepts as much or as little writing as you like.
Question types used below:
(1 choice) pick one option.
(Select all) pick every option that applies.
(Scale) rate from 1 to 5, where 1 is the lowest and 5 is the highest, with the labels given.
(Rank) put the options in order.
(Open) write as much or as little as you like. The open questions matter most, so please use them
These questions let us compare answers across fields, career stages and regions.
Q1. What is your main field of research? (1 choice)
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Q2. What is your current career stage? (1 choice)
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Q3. Where is your main institution based? (1 choice)
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Q4. How many papers have you authored or co-authored, inclduing preprints? (1 choice)
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Q5. In the past 12 months, how many papers have you peer-reviewed? (1 choice)
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Q6. How often do you publish or share your work in English? (1 choice)
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Section B: Your Research Workflow
These questions cover the tools you use and where your time goes across the research.
Q7. Which of these do you use regularly for research (Select all that applies)
Q8. How much do you agree: "I lose significant time switching between different research tools." (Scale)
1 = Strongly Disagree, 2 = Disagree, 3 = Neutral, 4 = Agree, 5 = Strongly Agree
Q9. Which stages of research take more time than they should? (Select up to 3)
Q10. Think about the most frustrating moment in your research workflow over the past year. What happened, and what did you do about it? (Open)
Q11. If you could change one thing about how research tools work together, what would it be? (Open)
Section C: Publishing and Sharing Your Work
These questions cover how you publish and share, and what holds you back.
Q12. Where have you shared your research outside a journal in the past two years? (Select all that apply)
Q13. How long did your most recent paper take from first submission to publication? (1 choice)
Q14. How much do you agree: "I can share my work the way I want to, without publisher rules or costs getting in the way." (Scale)
1 = Strongly Disagree, 2 = Disagree, 3 = Neutral, 4 = Agree, 5 = Strongly Agree
Q15. What stops you from sharing more of your work publicly, such as drafts, data, code or negative results?
(Select up to 3)
Q16. How important is it that work you share can be cited with a permanent identifier such as a DOI? (Scale)
1 = Not at all important, 2 = Slightly important, 3 = Moderately important, 4 = Very important, 5 = Essential
Q17. Tell us about a time you wanted to share or publish something and could not, or it was harder than it should have been. What got in the way? (Open)
Q18. What would make you willing to post a paper on a new platform that is not a traditional journal? What would make you refuse? (Open)
Section D: Being Found and Recognized
These questions cover how research gets discovered, read and credited. If you have not published anything yet, answer from what you have seen in your field.
Q19. How do you usually find new papers? (Select all that apply)
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Q20. How much do you agree: "It is easy for other researchers to find my work." (Scale)
1 = Strongly Disagree, 2 = Disagree, 3 = Neutral, 4 = Agree, 5 = Strongly Agree
Q21. How much do you agree: "Good work in my field often goes unnoticed." (Scale)
1 = Strongly Disagree, 2 = Disagree, 3 = Neutral, 4 = Agree, 5 = Strongly Agree
Q22. What do you think most affects how often a paper is read and cited? (Select up to 3)
Q23. Have you ever deliberately tried to make your work easier to find, for example by choosing keywords, writing a searchable title, or keeping a profile up to date (1 choice)
Q24. How much do you trust citation counts as a measure of a paper's quality? (Scale)
1 = Not at all, 2 = A little, 3 = Somewhat, 4 = Mostly, 5 = Completely
Q25. Which statistics about your work would you most want to see? (Select up to 3)
Q26. Describe a time your work, or someone else's, got more or less attention than it deserved. What do you think made the difference? (Open)
Q27. What would a platform need to do to actually get more people to read and cite your work? (Open)
Section E: Peer Review and Feedback
These questions cover how you give and receive feedback on research.
Q28. Which best describes your experience with peer review? (1 choice)
Q29. Overall, how satisfied are you with peer review as it works today? (Scale)
1 = Very Dissatisfied, 2 = Dissatisfied, 3 = Neutral, 4 = Satisfied, 5 = Very Satisfied
Q30. How much do you agree: "I get enough recognition for the reviewing I do." (Scale)
1 = Strongly disagree, 2 = Disagree, 3 = Neutral, 4 = Agree, 5 = Strongly Agree. Skip if you have not reviewed.
Q31. What would most increase your willingness to review? (Select up to 3)
Q32. Which review model do you prefer? (1 choice)
Q33. How concerned are you that comments in open review could be harsh or unfair? (Scale)
1 = Not at all Concerned, 2 = Slightly Concerned, 3 = Moderately Concerned, 4 = Very Concerned, 5 = Extremely Concerned
Q34. How useful would it be to get structured feedback on a draft before formally submitting it somewhere? (Scale)
1 = Not at all Useful, 2 = Slightly Useful, 3 = Moderately Useful, 4 = Very Useful, 5 = Extremely Useful
Q35. Describe the best and the worst peer review or feedback experiences you have had. What made each one good or bad? (Open)
Q36. What, if anything, worries you about reviews being public or reviewers being visible? (Open)
Section F: Citations, Reading, and Trust
These questions cover how you read papers, check sources, and decide which platforms to trust.
Q37. How much do you agree: "When I read a paper, I often need to look up its cited sources to judge it."(Scale)
1 = Strongly Disagree, 2 = Disagree, 3 = Neutral, 4 = Agree, 5 = Strongly Agree
Q38. How do you usually check a reference while reading? (1 choice)
Q39. How useful would it be to hover over a citation and see the cited paper's details without leaving the page? (Scale)
1 = Not at all Useful, 2 = Slightly Useful, 3 = Moderately Useful, 4 = Very Useful, 5 = Extremely Useful
Q40. What would you most want in a citation preview? (Select up to 3)
Q41. What makes you trust a platform where you read or post research? (Select up to 3)
Q42. What would make you distrust a research platform or stop using it? (Open)
Section G: Reaction to the Proposed Platform
Imagine a web platform where researchers publish papers and preprints with a visible abstract, cite sources with hover previews, receive open or pseudonymous feedback, and keep control of their own data. Nothing has been built yet, so your honest reaction is what we need.
Q43. How important would each of these features be to you? (Scale, one rating per row)
1 = Not at all Important, 2 = Slightly Important, 3 = Moderately Important, 4 = Very Important, 5 = Essential
Hover over a citation to see the cited paper's details, including its DOI or ISSN link
Papers set up so search engines, including Google Scholar, can index them correctly
Reviews published with credit on the reviewer's profile
Reviews that can be cited
A choice between named and pseudonymous reviews
Separate feedback before publication and formal review after it
Full export of my papers, reviews and citations
Verified researcher profiles through ORCID that I control
RSS and topic feeds that I control
Readership and citation statistics that include my work hosted elsewhere
Guidance on sharing rights when I upload a paper
Easy ways to attach data and code to a paper
Q44. If researchers in your field were posting there, how likely would you be to post a paper within three months of launch? (Scale)
1 = Very Unlikely, 2 = Unlikely, 3 = Unsure, 4 = Likely, 5 = Very Likely
Q45. How likely would you be to read papers there if they were free and showed up in Google Scholar? (Scale)
1 = Very Unlikely, 2 = Unlikely, 3 = Unsure, 4 = Likely, 5 = Very Likely
Q46. How likely would you be to review a paper there? (Scale)
1 = Very Unlikely, 2 = Unlikely, 3 = Unsure, 4 = Likely, 5 = Very Likely
Q47. Would you or your institution pay for a platform like this? (1 choice)
Q48. Which single feature in the table above matters most to you? (Open, name one)
Q49. What is the first thing you would want to do or see on a platform like this? (Open)
Q50. What is missing from the feature list that you would want? (Open)
Section H: Closing Questions
Q51. In your own words, what are your biggest concerns or frustrations with publishing, getting recognized, reviewing or sharing research? Write as much or as little as you like. Bullet points, rough notes or a long paragraph all work. (Open)
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If it helps to get started, you could write about:
- Publishing or sharing your work
- Getting your work found, read and cited
- Peer review and feedback
- Checking sources and citations
- Anything about tools or platforms that frustrates you
- What you would want changed, or what worries you about a new platform
Q52. Would you be open to a follow-up? This is optional, and a written follow-up by email is fine. (1 choice)
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Q53. If you would like a written follow-up, a call, or updates on the project, enter your email address. (Open, optional)
Your email will be stored separately from your survey answers. Thank you for your time. It is greatly appreciated :)
