Research practice, satisfaction, motivation, and challenges among university academics in Kurdistan Region of Iraq

Hamdia Mirkhan Ahmed; Nazdar Ezzaddin Alkhateeb; Nazar P. Shabila; Amir Abdulrahman Ahmad

doi:10.1371/journal.pone.0302540

Peer Review History

Original SubmissionMarch 18, 2024
4 Apr 2024 Decision Letter - Ranjdar Mahmood Talabani, Editor PONE-D-24-10517Research practice, satisfaction, motivation, and challenges among university academics in Kurdistan Region of IraqPLOS ONE Dear Dr.Nazar P. Shabila Thank you for submitting your manuscript to PLOS ONE. After careful consideration, we feel that it has merit but does not fully meet PLOS ONE’s publication criteria as it currently stands. Therefore, we invite you to submit a revised version of the manuscript that addresses the points raised during the review process. Please submit your revised manuscript by May 19 2024 11:59PM. If you will need more time than this to complete your revisions, please reply to this message or contact the journal office at plosone@plos.org. When you're ready to submit your revision, log on to https://www.editorialmanager.com/pone/ and select the 'Submissions Needing Revision' folder to locate your manuscript file. 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The PLOS ONE style templates can be found at https://journals.plos.org/plosone/s/file?id=wjVg/PLOSOne_formatting_sample_main_body.pdf and https://journals.plos.org/plosone/s/file?id=ba62/PLOSOne_formatting_sample_title_authors_affiliations.pdf. 2. Please review your reference list to ensure that it is complete and correct. If you have cited papers that have been retracted, please include the rationale for doing so in the manuscript text, or remove these references and replace them with relevant current references. Any changes to the reference list should be mentioned in the rebuttal letter that accompanies your revised manuscript. If you need to cite a retracted article, indicate the article’s retracted status in the References list and also include a citation and full reference for the retraction notice. Reviewers' comments: Reviewer's Responses to Questions Comments to the Author 1. Is the manuscript technically sound, and do the data support the conclusions? The manuscript must describe a technically sound piece of scientific research with data that supports the conclusions. Experiments must have been conducted rigorously, with appropriate controls, replication, and sample sizes. The conclusions must be drawn appropriately based on the data presented. Reviewer #1: Yes ******** 2. Has the statistical analysis been performed appropriately and rigorously? Reviewer #1: Yes ****** 3. Have the authors made all data underlying the findings in their manuscript fully available? The PLOS Data policy requires authors to make all data underlying the findings described in their manuscript fully available without restriction, with rare exception (please refer to the Data Availability Statement in the manuscript PDF file). The data should be provided as part of the manuscript or its supporting information, or deposited to a public repository. For example, in addition to summary statistics, the data points behind means, medians and variance measures should be available. If there are restrictions on publicly sharing data—e.g. participant privacy or use of data from a third party—those must be specified. Reviewer #1: No ****** 4. Is the manuscript presented in an intelligible fashion and written in standard English? PLOS ONE does not copyedit accepted manuscripts, so the language in submitted articles must be clear, correct, and unambiguous. Any typographical or grammatical errors should be corrected at revision, so please note any specific errors here. Reviewer #1: Yes ****** 5. Review Comments to the Author Please use the space provided to explain your answers to the questions above. You may also include additional comments for the author, including concerns about dual publication, research ethics, or publication ethics. (Please upload your review as an attachment if it exceeds 20,000 characters) Reviewer #1: Review for Manuscript ID: PONE-D-24-10517 entitled "Research practice, satisfaction, motivation, and challenges among university academics in Kurdistan Region of Iraq" In general, the paper is well-written and easy to follow. The authors highlight an issue that is of real concern. Thus, I admire their initiative. There are some minor points that need to be addressed, as follows. General notes: 1. I believe one of the factors that affects research productivity is access to scientific journals and books. In the Kurdistan region, the majority of universities, public ones in particular, do not provide electronic access to their academic staff. This is something that, I believe, has to be discussed in the manuscript. 2. There is financial support for publication by some universities (some public and the majority of private universities). Again, this has to be explored. 3. The authors have to mention the rules by the Ministry of Higher Education in KRG as these rules are amended frequently and affect the quality of higher education in KRG. 4. There needs to be a clearer collaboration between the Ministry of Higher Education and the Ministry of Planning in KRG. This discourages academic staff from doing research, as they believe that policymakers in the KRG do not hear their voices. Thus, it has to be added to the discussion section. 5. The lack of a clear rule for academic staff with no publication and an old style of academic title promotion (the latest rule is from 2016 in KRG) could also be related to the fact that research publication is not taken seriously by the academic staff. Again, this has to be explored. 6. The salary issue should also be mentioned, as government employees in KRG suffer delays in their monthly salary KRG government. Specific notes: 1. A copy of the questionnaire has to be added as a figure in the method section. 2. Is the questionnaire validated? This has to be stated in the methodology. 3. The ethical committee's number and approval date must be added. 4. The methods sections should be sectioned as follows: study design, questionnaire, participants, and statistical analysis. 5. What are the study's limitations? This has to be added to the discussion. There are inherent issues with the questionnaire study. 6. Table 1 better to be presented as a pie chart. BW, ****** 6. PLOS authors have the option to publish the peer review history of their article (what does this mean?). If published, this will include your full peer review and any attached files. If you choose “no”, your identity will remain anonymous but your review may still be made public. Do you want your identity to be public for this peer review? For information about this choice, including consent withdrawal, please see our Privacy Policy. Reviewer #1: Yes: Sarhang Sarwat Gul ******** [NOTE: If reviewer comments were submitted as an attachment file, they will be attached to this email and accessible via the submission site. Please log into your account, locate the manuscript record, and check for the action link "View Attachments". If this link does not appear, there are no attachment files.] While revising your submission, please upload your figure files to the Preflight Analysis and Conversion Engine (PACE) digital diagnostic tool, https://pacev2.apexcovantage.com/. PACE helps ensure that figures meet PLOS requirements. To use PACE, you must first register as a user. Registration is free. Then, login and navigate to the UPLOAD tab, where you will find detailed instructions on how to use the tool. If you encounter any issues or have any questions when using PACE, please email PLOS at figures@plos.org. Please note that Supporting Information files do not need this step. https://doi.org/10.1371/journal.pone.0302540.r001
Revision 1
6 Apr 2024 Author Response Reviewer 1 In general, the paper is well-written and easy to follow. The authors highlight an issue that is of real concern. Thus, I admire their initiative. There are some minor points that need to be addressed, as follows. Authors’ response Thank you very much for the positive comments. Thank you for the comments and suggestions that we found very useful General notes: 1. I believe one of the factors that affects research productivity is access to scientific journals and books. In the Kurdistan region, the majority of universities, public ones in particular, do not provide electronic access to their academic staff. This is something that, I believe, has to be discussed in the manuscript. Authors’ response Thank you very much for this valuable comment. The issue of access to scientific journals and books is now thoroughly discussed in the Discussion section (Pages 12-13, lines 211-224). It is also included in the Conclusions (Page 18, lines 346-347). 2. There is financial support for publication by some universities (some public and the majority of private universities). Again, this has to be explored. Authors’ response The issue of financial support for research, the support by some universities, and related issues are now discussed in detail in the Discussion section (Page 14, lines 260-264). 3. The authors have to mention the rules by the Ministry of Higher Education in KRG as these rules are amended frequently and affect the quality of higher education in KRG. Authors’ response The ministry's main rules and the effect of their frequent amendments on higher education are now discussed in detail (Page 16, lines 291-299). 4. There needs to be a clearer collaboration between the Ministry of Higher Education and the Ministry of Planning in KRG. This discourages academic staff from doing research, as they believe that policymakers in the KRG do not hear their voices. Thus, it has to be added to the discussion section. Authors’ response Thanks for this comment. We have now discussed the issue of collaboration and knowledge transfer in detail in the Discussion section (Page 16, lines 307-312). It is also included in the Conclusions (Page 18, lines 347, 355-356). 5. The lack of a clear rule for academic staff with no publication and an old style of academic title promotion (the latest rule is from 2016 in KRG) could also be related to the fact that research publication is not taken seriously by the academic staff. Again, this has to be explored. Authors’ response This lack of clear rules for academic staff with no publication is now discussed in detail in the Discussion section (Page 15, lines 281-288). It is also included in the Conclusion (Page 18, lines 352-354). 6. The salary issue should also be mentioned, as government employees in KRG suffer delays in their monthly salary KRG government. Authors’ response The issue of delays in staff salary is now discussed in the Discussion section (Page 14-15, lines 264-268). Specific notes: 1. A copy of the questionnaire has to be added as a figure in the method section. Authors’ response A copy of the questionnaire is now provided as the supporting information file (Page 5, lines 118-119 and S1 Appendix file). 2. Is the questionnaire validated? This has to be stated in the methodology. Authors’ response Details are provided about the validation of the questionnaire (Page 6, lines 120-123). 3. The ethical committee's number and approval date must be added. Authors’ response The ethical committee approval number and date are provided (Page 6, line 137). 4. The methods sections should be sectioned as follows: study design, questionnaire, participants, and statistical analysis. Authors’ response The Methods section is now divided to sub-sections, as advised (Page 5-6, lines 109, 112, 127, and 131). 5. What are the study's limitations? This has to be added to the discussion. There are inherent issues with the questionnaire study. Authors’ response The study limitations are now provided and discussed in detail at the end of the Discussion section (Pages 17-18, lines 333-343). 6. Table 1 better to be presented as a pie chart. Authors’ response Table 1 is changed to a pie chart (Page 7, line 145 and Figure 1). Attachments Attachment Submitted filename: Response to Reviewers.pdf https://doi.org/10.1371/journal.pone.0302540.r002
9 Apr 2024 Decision Letter - Ranjdar Mahmood Talabani, Editor Research practice, satisfaction, motivation, and challenges among university academics in Kurdistan Region of Iraq PONE-D-24-10517R1 Dear Dr. Nazar P. Shabila We’re pleased to inform you that your manuscript has been judged scientifically suitable for publication and will be formally accepted for publication once it meets all outstanding technical requirements. Within one week, you’ll receive an e-mail detailing the required amendments. When these have been addressed, you’ll receive a formal acceptance letter and your manuscript will be scheduled for publication. An invoice will be generated when your article is formally accepted. Please note, if your institution has a publishing partnership with PLOS and your article meets the relevant criteria, all or part of your publication costs will be covered. Please make sure your user information is up-to-date by logging into Editorial Manager at Editorial Manager® and clicking the ‘Update My Information' link at the top of the page. If you have any questions relating to publication charges, please contact our Author Billing department directly at authorbilling@plos.org. If your institution or institutions have a press office, please notify them about your upcoming paper to help maximize its impact. If they’ll be preparing press materials, please inform our press team as soon as possible -- no later than 48 hours after receiving the formal acceptance. Your manuscript will remain under strict press embargo until 2 pm Eastern Time on the date of publication. For more information, please contact onepress@plos.org. Kind regards, Ranjdar Mahmood Talabani Academic Editor PLOS ONE Additional Editor Comments (optional): Reviewers' comments: https://doi.org/10.1371/journal.pone.0302540.r003

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