The Turkish Symposium of Social Sciences (TSBS) has been organized online since 2021 in cooperation with Ankara Yıldırım Beyazıt University and the Oku Okut Association, with the aim of enhancing academic interaction in the field of social sciences and providing opportunities for experience sharing. This year, applications were received from the fields of philosophy, theology, psychology, sociology, and history. A total of 127 applications were reviewed, and after a rigorous evaluation process, 86 papers—corresponding to 67.72% of the submissions—were accepted. Held online between 25–31 August 2025, the symposium featured presentations by 100 researchers from 28 institutions (including co-authored works), while in total, 202 researchers from 60 universities and institutions contributed. To ensure the academic quality of the process, 58 members of the Scientific Committee from 25 institutions took part, and the symposium was conducted over seven days in 32 sessions.

Applications to the symposium were not assessed solely on the basis of “acceptance or rejection.” In particular, papers submitted by master’s and doctoral students were carefully examined by the Scientific Committee and reviewers to ensure compliance with academic research and writing standards, and constructive feedback was provided to the authors. In this process, a total of 282 review reports were prepared, transforming the symposium into a “Practical School of Paper Writing.” Our goal is to support graduate students in academic writing and presentation, to provide guidance through the contributions of experienced academics, and to help improve the quality of their research. To this end, online training resources entitled “How to Prepare a Paper” and “How to Present a Paper” were made available on the symposium website, and accepted authors were also given the opportunity to conduct online presentation rehearsals.

The symposium website was specially designed to ensure easy access to content in terms of information architecture. Taking into account that many symposium websites become inaccessible a few years after the event, a bilingual (Turkish-English) platform has been developed on the widely used OJS system and has been continuously improved and used since 2021. This system provides access to information about the Scientific and Organizing Committees, paper preparation guidelines, the review process, the program, and archives of previous symposiums. In addition, Turkish and English abstracts of the papers, keywords, video recordings of presentations, and participation certificates are made permanently accessible.

For the full texts of the symposium papers to be indexed in international academic databases such as Web of Science and Scopus, certain criteria must be met: the publication of full texts, the inclusion of English abstracts and essential metadata, and the assignment of DOIs. This symposium and its digital infrastructure have been prepared precisely to meet these criteria. Indeed, the necessary applications have already been submitted, and once the process is completed, it is expected that our papers will be indexed internationally.