Relationship between Insider Research and Time from Submission to Acceptance in Turkish Dentistry Journals

Journals, regardless of their quality, may facilitate the publication of studies of affiliated authors or those of researchers in their close networks, this exhibiting biased behaviors in favor of insider researchers during peer review. The aim of this research was to determine insider authors’ motivations for obtaining high and fast rates of acceptance of studies published by their affiliated institutions. A total of 11 Turkish dentistry journals with regular publishing schedules between 2017 and 2021 were examined. The publication language of the papers was either English or Turkish, and the papers were of four groups: original articles, reviews, case reports, and short communications. The submission date, acceptance date, and time from submission to acceptance of each paper were examined. The number of authors and the corresponding authors’ countries of origin were noted, and the papers were analyzed to determine whether the researchers were insiders. The findings show that insider authors both publish in large numbers in their affiliated universities' journals (15.6% - 65.0%) and have significantly faster speeds (up to 82 days). The average time from submission to acceptance significantly differed for insider and outsider researchers in all journals except four. As in most areas of the health sciences, dentistry also lacks research on bias and the literature contains no study examining this issue in the field of dentistry both in Turkey and in the world. This study invokes a new discussion in this area by focusing on national dentistry journals and the bias inherent in editorial attitudes. In the future studies, it would be better to compare data on insiders and outsiders by incorporating both national and international dentistry papers in the future studies.


INTRODUCTION
[4] Academic publishing should support high-quality studies, regardless of the author's background. [5]][11][12] In the literature, there are some definitions that may be closely related to malpractice concerning publishing an article in a scientific journal, such as nepotism, academic inbreeding and editorial gatekeeping.Nepotism is a common hiring mechanism in (family) firms: families use their control to hire family members, thus perpetuating family involvement over time and across generations. [13,14][17][18][19] Finally, the most notable malpractice is that of in-group bias or favoritism displayed by journals or editors toward insider researchers because of their positions.In-group bias is defined as having a positive attitude toward researchers affiliated with the university that publishes the journal of interest. [10,20]urnal's attitudes play a significant role in the acceptance of submitted studies because the editor is the final decision maker in referee selection for the evaluation of submitted work. [21]xisting studies have reported that journals may exhibit biased attitudes in favor of researchers in their professional networks and even provide compensation to protect their own quality and prestige. [10]A study supporting this claim revealed journals' bias in favor of the researchers affiliated with them. [22] Turkey, most public universities, faculties, and social science institutes publish their own journals.While having their own publications may be considered an indication of institutions' soft power by academic circles, it can also provide potential career benefits, such as the ability to meet expected performance criteria for associated staff and the prompt publication of papers. [23] Social Science Research Network study that compared two universities and two independent journals showed that the authors of studies published in the universities' journals were mostly academics working at those universities. [5]er review is an institution of enormous importance for the careers of scientists and the content of published science. [1]cademic journals use peer reviews to obtain objective assessments of the scientific validity of submitted studies.However, biased behaviors that may impair the impartiality of the review process. [24]Journals, regardless of their quality, may facilitate the publication of studies of affiliated authors or those of researchers in their close networks, this exhibiting biased behaviors in favor of insider researchers during peer review. [20]he decisions of gatekeepers-that is, the journal's editors and peer reviewers-legitimize the scientific findings of published studies, facilitate the distribution of professional rewards, and influence future research.While some researchers have argued that the publishing of high-quality studies is due to interjournal competition, [23,25] others have stated that it is a way for editors to publish substandard, low-quality papers submitted by their close friends and colleagues. [10]e Regulation on Academic Incentive Allowance (AIA) was put into force in Turkey on December 18, 2015, and was revised on December 31, 2016, as a means for supporting scientific studies and encouraging faculty members to be productive.Within the scope of the AIA Regulation prepared in accordance with the Higher Education Law, a minimum of 100 points can be obtained in areas such as project, research, publication, design, exhibition, patent, citation, conference talks, and awards for academic advancement.Starting from the year 2016, financial support has been also provided to academic staff at different levels and at the rates indicated in the regulation.
The aim of the AIA was to encourage Turkish national scientific studies, support those who do scientific work, and increase the quantity and quality of scientific national studies and national journals in Turkey.However, the regulation rewards caused a significant increase only in the quantity, and not the quality, of Turkish national journals and publications. [26]Further, they led to the proliferation of Turkish national journals with less stringent acceptance criteria and poor peer review processes. [27]e regulation provides different criteria for social and health sciences (medicine, dentistry etc.,).For dentistry academia in Turkey, the regulation requires academics to collect at least eight points from nationally published dental journals and a minimum of 100 points to apply for academic advancement.However, none of the Turkish dentistry journals are in the Science Citation Index Expanded (SCIE), the Science Citation Index (SCI), or the Social Sciences Citation Index (SSCI).Therefore, studies that are accepted by Turkish dentistry journals obtain less points than those accepted by international journals.Thus, when considering the scoring system of the regulation, Turkish academicians in the field of dentistry tend to have more publications by choosing the easier route instead of obtaining quality publications. [23] general, the health sciences explore the physiological processes of humans to find treatments to pathological issues.The natural fundamentals in this field often lack observations of human behavioral attitudes.Bias, which has not been adequately studied in health sciences, may lead to complications in the critical areas such as health science academia.As in most areas of the health sciences, dentistry also lacks research on bias.The literature contains no study examining this issue, which has a social aspect, in the field of dentistry both in Turkey and in the world.Thus, the present study investigated the bias and potential favoritism exhibited by Turkish dentistry journals in favor of insider researchers, which could result in shorter durations from submission to acceptance, compared to attitudes toward nonaffiliated researchers.Although the focus was on the determinant factors of being an insider researcher and the in-group bias reflected by the time from submission to acceptance, this study also invokes a new discussion in this area by focusing on national dentistry journals and the bias inherent in editorial attitudes.
The study hypothesizes that insider publications are associated with shorter time-to-acceptance.

METHODOLOGY
A total of 11 Turkish dentistry journals with regular publishing schedules between 2017 and 2021 were examined, namely 7Tepe Klinik, Acta Odontologica Turcica, the Journal of Dental Faculty of Atatürk University, the Journal of Ege University School of Dentistry, European Annals of Dental Sciences, European Oral Research, Selçuk Dental Journal, Cumhuriyet Dental Journal, Clinical Dentistry and Research, the Journal of International Dental Science, and Aydın Dental Journal.The number of papers published annually and the index categories of the journals were examined.Journals that published regularly in the last 10 years and that successfully realized the publication periods specified and planned on their sites were included the study.Journals of medical science were excluded.Journal issues containing supplementary (additional) content and congress or symposium abstracts were excluded from the study.The publication language of the papers was either English or Turkish, and the papers were of four groups: original articles, reviews, case reports, and short The Paper is under investigation for Possible Plagiarism Baser, et al.: Evaluation of Bias among Turkish Dentistry Journals communications.The submission date, acceptance date, and time from submission to acceptance of each paper were examined.The number of authors and the corresponding authors' countries of origin were noted, and the papers were analyzed to determine whether the researchers were insiders.Insider researchers were those affiliated with the university that owned the corresponding journal through employment or study.In the study design; if an author from university A published a paper at dentistry journal of university A, we noted the author A as an insider researcher as well as paper.All of the papers viewed in the study are clearly stated on the official sites of the journals where they published and are also available for everyone.
Few Turkish journals provide information about their review processes.Therefore, study data reflect only accepted papers.Although statistics obtained from these data shed light on the issue in question, examining the data, reviews rounds, such as the total number of submissions to the journals and initial decision time, may help make clear inferences about in-group bias.
Statistical analyses were performed using SPSS 26 software (Statistical Package for the Social Sciences 26 Inc, IL, USA).In the data evaluation stage, the Kolmogorov-Smirnov test was used to assess the normality of the data.The Mann-Whitney test was performed to determine the significance of differences of variables.A multivariable linear regression model was used to determine the effects of the predictor factors (independent variables: journal title, type of papers, the existence of insiders, manuscript's language, the number of insider authors, and journal age) on the time to acceptance (dependent variable).Normality was assessed for time to acceptance and non-normally distributed data were transformed using the natural log (Ln) value where relevant.The statistics were based on 1919 observations and six predictors.A p-value < 0.05 was considered significant for the analysis.
The model consisted of one dependent variable: time to acceptance.This represented the time from the submission of a paper to its acceptance where declared.The full model equations with independent variables were as follows:

RESULTS
The papers published in the journals are shown in Tables 1, 2, 3, Figures 1 and 2 distributed by year, language of publication, and type.A total of 1919 papers were examined based on the previously specified criteria.The majority of published papers were original articles, and some were short communications.The statistical relationships between the number of insider papers and time from submission to acceptance for the studies of insider and outsider researchers are given in Table 4. Upon examining the papers of the selected journals over the last five years, EADS was found to have the highest insider researcher rate at 65%, and the average time from submission to acceptance (14.99 days) was much shorter than those of other journals.SDJ had the lowest rate of insider researchers (15.6%); however, the time from submission to acceptance statistically significantly differed for insider and outsider researchers and was in favor of insider researchers (p < 0.01).Similarly, 7Tepe's rate of insider researchers (18.9%) was low, but the mean time from submission to acceptance of insider researchers' studies was also statistically significantly low (p < 0.01).In contrast, the rates of insider researchers were high for ADJ and AOT (46.6% and 46.1%, respectively), but the difference between insider and outsider researchers' time from submission to acceptance was statistically insignificant (p > 0.05).For CDR, the insider researcher rate (45.7%) and mean time from submission to acceptance (202.49) were higher than those of other journals, and the relationship between insider and outsider researchers' The Paper is under investigation for Possible Plagiarism Baser, et al.: Evaluation of Bias among Turkish Dentistry Journals mean times from submission to acceptance was also statistically significant (p < 0.05).When the publications of the 11 journals over the last five years were examined, the difference between insider and outsider researchers' mean times from submission to acceptance was statistically significant (p < 0.05) for all journals except four (ADJ, JIDS, AUDHFD, and AOT).The study also showed that 57.6% of all papers were written in Turkish, and only 42.4% were in English.
The linear multivariable regression model results are shown in Table 5, indicating that time to acceptance was significantly affected by the existence of insiders (p < 0.001), journal title (p < 0.001) and journal age (p < 0.001).Moreover, the other independent variables in this study (the language of manuscript, type of paper and the number of insider authors) did not show any significant effects on the dependent (time to acceptance) variable (p > 0.05).

DISCUSSION
According to the literature, an insider is a person who owns a journal through their employment or education and/or is currently affiliated with the corresponding university. [10,20]It is very likely that these individuals use their relationships with the journal or journal editor to gain access.Since the extent of involvement of insider researchers and the type of arguments used in the reviewed journals could not be exactly determined, a limited definition of insider researcher was used in this study.Conversely, there may be outsider researchers who have connections with related journals.The extent to which journals are affiliated with outsider researchers is estimated to be low, but it is quite difficult to measure.
Mrowinski et al. [1] stated that the submissions of insider researchers are accepted relatively faster than those of outsider researchers.Karadag et al. [28] researched ability of Turkish scholars to publish in Social Science Citation Index (SSCI).Ross et al. [29] also observed that most journals tend to publish papers by insider researchers faster than those by outsider researchers.Apart from a few journals, most generally exhibit significant in-group bias and fail to treat outsider authors equally.Lutmar & Reingewertz [30] showed that academics submit less influential papers to the journal of the university with which they are affiliated.This attitude may be due to their belief that they will be treated favorably within their jurisdiction, their reluctance to leave their comfort zone, or the relative encouragement of national publications by regulations.Xu et al. [31] researched the difference of the publications by board and non-board members from the perspectives of publication delay and influence.The study showed that the scientific publications by board members have shorter publication delays than those by non-board members.Similarly, in the present study, the proportion of insider researchers varied between 15.6% and 65.0% among the examined journals, and the difference in the time from submission to acceptance was up to 82 days, favoring insider researchers.Further, insider researchers choose to publish their papers in the journal of the university Considering that writing and publishing high-quality research takes time and effort, SCIE, SCI, SSCI publications score higher in the regulatory reward system, but the reward-to-effort ratio is significantly in favor of national dental publications.In this regard, Muller et al. [32] stated that the system encourages low-quality publications for increased timeliness of performance evaluations instead of urging researchers to produce high-quality publications.
The findings of this study confirm the existence of in-group bias and academic favoritism among most dentistry journals.
However, it should be taken into account that this biased attitude may be simple nepotism with no psychological or other basis.
Considering the increase in the number of researchers who have submitted their studies for publication in recent years, it is possible that editors turn to the researchers they know and believe are reliable to reduce this workload.

Year
Academics in Turkey have to gain 100 points to apply for academic advancement (associate professor) and re-collect 100 points in five years for full professorship.Some of these points (at least eight points for health sciences/dentistry) are required to be achieved by publishing papers in Turkish dentistry journals, in line with the criteria provided by the interuniversity council (UAK).However, none of the Turkish dentistry journals are in the SSCI, SCI or SCIE category, due to which studies that are accepted by these journals obtain less points than those accepted by international journals.Since it is difficult to publish in international journals and studies must be of particularly high quality, Turkish researchers may try to get their work accepted by Turkish dentistry journals for a large part of their academic scores.
Due to the academic incentive regulation that came into force in 2016, the number of journals with low acceptance criteria and inefficient evaluation processes has increased. [27]This regulation may have led academics to seek ways to increase their academic productivity and quickly publish as many papers as possible.
Insider researchers aim to publish frequently by applying to  Further, the new academic incentive reform (Higher Education Regulation, 2016) provides academicians with economic performance allowance in return for their publications being accepted in Turkish dentistry journals, potentially leading to an increase in fast and easy studies and economic income.
As part of a more advanced higher education policy to encourage national research, academic incentive regulations were introduced in December 2016 to make national publications mandatory.The regulations officially recognized that national journals performance scores are lower than those of Web of Science and Scopus.The regulations recognized the higher quality of Web of Science journals by giving them a performance score 2.5 times those of national journals; however, the score was still not large enough in terms of the relative effort and time required to undertake high-quality research. [23]Pyne [33] showed that publishing in low-quality or predatory journals give researchers a career advantage over those opting for high-quality research when the latter has negative reward.Accordingly, researchers have argued that the attitude toward insider research is caused by an instinct to achieve academic promotion goals.It is undeniable that journals and researchers aim to increase their output levels by utilizing their mutual relationship and adapting to new realities in the field.
Although the present study's findings revealed a prominent in-group bias, it is not possible to generalize a negative relationship between the rate of insider researchers and mean time from submission to acceptance because it was found to differ among all Turkish dentistry journals.Since the aim of this study was to present a general overview of national dentistry journals, the statistics of individual journals were not considered.
Ross et al. [29] found peer review bias in the open reviews of abstracts favoring researchers from English-speaking countries such as the United Kingdom and United States.Kurt [34] also observed that authors who have lack knowledge of English prefer not to submit to prestigious journals due to potential rejection.
Oppositely, the present study's findings show that the language of manuscript is not associated with acceptance time and did not show a significant advantage.In addition, since detailed data TO ACCEPTANCE = Constant + Insider (Yes) + Language of Paper (English) + Journal Title (ADJ) + Journal Title (AOT) + Journal Title (AUDFD) + Journal Title (CDJ) + Journal Title (CDR) + Journal Title (EADS) + Journal Title (EOR) + Journal Title (EUDFD) + Journal Title (SDJ) + Journal Title (JIDS) + Type of Paper (CR) + Journal Age + Number of Insiders

Figure 1 :
Figure 1: Distribution of papers and language.

Table 1 : Distribution of papers published by journals by years.
7 TEPE; 7Tepe Klinik, AOT; Acta Odontologica Turcica, AUDFD; Journal of Dental Faculty of Atatürk University, EUDHFD; Journal of Ege University School of Dentistry, EADS; European Annals of Dental Sciences, EOR; European Oral Research, SDJ; Selçuk Dental Journal, CDJ; Cumhuriyet Dental Journal, CDR; Clinical Dentistry and Research, JIDS; Journal of International Dental Science, and ADJ; Aydın Dental Journal.7 TEPE; 7Tepe Klinik, AOT; Acta Odontologica Turcica, AUDFD; Journal of Dental Faculty of Atatürk University, EUDHFD; Journal of Ege University School of Dentistry, EADS; European Annals of Dental Sciences, EOR; European Oral Research, SDJ; Selçuk Dental Journal, CDJ; Cumhuriyet Dental Journal, CDR; Clinical Dentistry and Research, U JIDS; Journal of International Dental Science, and ADJ; Aydın Dental Journal.

Table 2 : Distribution of papers by language. The Paper is under investigation for Possible Plagiarism
Baser, et al.: Evaluation of Bias among Turkish Dentistry Journals

Table 3 : Distribution of paper types published in journals. Journal Title All papers (2017-2021) Insider Papers Insider Papers Ratio (%) Median Acceptance Time (Min -Max) Median Insider Time (Min -Max) Median Outsider Time (Min -Max)
: Standard Deviation, Results of Mann Whitney U test7 TEPE; 7Tepe Klinik, AOT; Acta Odontologica Turcica, AUDFD; Journal of Dental Faculty of Atatürk University, EUDHFD; Journal of Ege University School of Dentistry, EADS; European Annals of Dental Sciences, EOR; European Oral Research, SDJ; Selçuk Dental Journal, CDJ; Cumhuriyet Dental Journal, CDR; Clinical Dentistry and Research, JIDS; Journal of International Dental Science, and ADJ; Aydın Dental Journal. SD

Table 4 : Comparison of acceptance time and Insider papers ratio. The Paper is under investigation for Possible Plagiarism
Baser, et al.: Evaluation of Bias among Turkish Dentistry Journals specific journals, indicating a negative relationship between insider research and time from submission to acceptance.