Survey says …

Lisa A. Fortier
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 DVM, PhD, DACVS

In my January 2024 editorial, “Evidence-based journal strategies for 2024,” I mentioned that we would be conducting a JAVMA and AJVR reader and author survey in Q1 2024. The results of the JAVMA/AJVR survey are now in, analyzed, and ready for action.

In this editorial, I’ll talk about the results of the readership portion of the survey, which was designed to assess member satisfaction with the changes made to JAVMA since I became your Editor-in-Chief in 2021, as well as to ask about further changes you’d like to see. One change that we have already implemented based on this survey is to return species-specific identification in the table of contents.

Sample

A random sample of 18,456 AVMA members and 2,932 members in academia yielded 1,142 responses from the general member sample, 299 from the academicians, with a total of 309 responses qualifying as from authors.

Your Reading Habits

  • 92% of you read JAVMA at least sometimes, with 70% reading the journal in print.

  • 84% of you read JAVMA in print versus 39% online.

  • 59% of you search JAVMA online when you need information about specific clinical problems.

Perceptions of JAVMA by “Frequent Readers” Agree/Strongly Agree
JAVMA content is current and up-to-date 91%
JAVMA publishes articles that keep me informed about issues affecting the profession 89%
The proportion of article types (scientific vs news, viewpoint) in JAVMA is satisfactory 77%
Articles contain information I can use in my work 69%
What You Like About the Changes

We’ve Made Since 2021
Satisfied
Switch to monthly versus twice-monthly print JAVMA 81%
Switch to eco-friendly paper and wrapper 81%
Special Topic supplements (2/year) 71%
Size and quality of figures and radiographs 69%
Currents in One Health 62%

Several other changes have not yet garnered sufficient awareness for satisfaction ratings, but we believe these are important for your journals and will keep working on getting the message out to you. These include new website navigation, online-only content, and Technical Tutorial Video manuscripts.

A couple of changes have not been universally well received: some of you don’t like online-only content in JAVMA, and some don’t like the eco-friendly paper.

In a future editorial, I’ll talk more about what we learned of the authors in our midst and how our journals compare to other veterinary medicine journals.

But in the meantime, I’ll close with the following supportive comments the survey captured:

I like JAVMA as it is!

  • Thanks for making the changes! So much more information and relevance.

  • I think all the changes and innovations have been great, and they have increased my enjoyment of the journal =).

  • As always, thank you for your support, and keep the comments coming!

Respectfully,

Lisa A. Fortier DVM, PhD, DACVS

Editor-in-Chief, JAVMA and AJVR

Chief Publications Officer, AVMA

lfortier@avma.org

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