The April Community Call discussion focused on the past, present, and future of bioRxiv, medRxiv, and openRxiv. We were joined by Richard Sever, co-founder of bioRxiv and medRxiv and CSSO at openRxiv, preprint servers focusing on biology and biomedical science, which started at Cold Spring Harbor Laboratory.
Richard summarized the past 12 years of those preprint servers in a few impressive numbers:
>350K preprints posted
~10 M views per month
>80% of papers are subsequently published in journals.
However, the bioRxiv and medRxiv history is not just the number of posted or read preprints. Richard discussed that those servers’ 12 years of existence changed the life science community. More biologists are posting, reading, and citing preprints. They also do not need to worry about whether journals will accept a manuscript if it has already been posted as a preprint, as most journals accept such submissions (which was not always the case in the past). Preprints also receive support from founders and institutions that encourage or even mandate preprints, like the Gates Foundation, which has mandated that their grantees post preprints.
Richard also discussed the original goals behind creating preprint servers – to accelerate science and stimulate the evolution of the scientific publication system. Looking back at 12 years of the bioRxiv and medRxiv, Richard concluded that those goals were met.
First, preprints enabled researchers to make their research immediately available, rather than waiting for a scientific journal’s lengthy peer review process. One notable example of how preprints helped expedite science was during the COVID-19 pandemic, when the rapid sharing of scientific knowledge helped save lives. Richard gave an example of the results from the RECOVERY trial that were first posted as a preprint. The data showed the benefits of dexamethasone in severely ill patients with COVID-19. Since the data was available weeks before the journal publication, physicians could use it earlier, thus saving lives. He also referred to the estimation that if everyone shared research immediately via preprints, it could accelerate scientific discoveries fivefold.
Second, preprints facilitated experimentation in peer review, commentary, and other forms of feedback. Preprints enabled initiatives such as Peer Community In, Review Commons, PREreview, and many others to experiment with reviewing, commenting, and discussing scientific research.
He also discusses the future goals. First, in the future, he sees preprints as the primary means of disseminating research. Second, he is encouraging the directed evolution of preprints. This evolution aims to decouple dissemination and evaluation to improve peer review and verification.
He discussed two possible scenarios of evolution of preprinting: open ecosystem and publisher silo, an idea also dscussed in the op-ed posted on LSE.
In the open ecosystem, everyone posts preprints on a community preprint server and then different actions can be taken, depending on the manuscript, e.g, peer review, either traditional or decoupled, such as PCI or Review Commons; or other actions, such as commenting, or verifying key information by the badging services and so on.
The other option of this evolution is that preprints are in silos controlled by publishers. In this scenario, the researchers send a preprint to the commercial publisher, and they decide where it fits in the hierarchy of their journals. This preserves the journal hegemony and the journal name as a proxy.
Richard prefers the first scenario, which will ultimately lead to what he calls ‘the article of the future’, with many objects linked to it, such as preregistered reports, data sets, and reviews.
Numerous challenges are associated with the evolution of the preprinting system, but he believes that openRxiv is the answer to the challenges they face. penRxiv is not a preprint server, but an independent nonprofit organization that oversees bioRxiv and medRxiv to help establish long-term stability.
He believes that bioRxiv and medRxiv were successful experiments. Now it’s time to move from prototype to something that is operational long-term and steer it in the right direction. For this, openRxiv brought respected figures in the scientific community on board, many of whom have been involved in bioRxiv, medRxiv, and other preprint-related activities.
Following the talk, during the Q&A, Richard answered many questions from the participants. He elaborated on how preprint servers can serve authors from the Global South, as they are inclusive platforms and accept submissions worldwide.
Participants also asked about the idea of incremental preprints. Richard believes that we need to strike a balance between improving your paper and creating a new version of the manuscript, but not producing too many versions of your paper, because this would make it more difficult for readers. He also believes that this idea does not appeal to scientists themselves, as they often want to draw a line and decide to finish the project at some point.
Richard also discussed Open Access alternatives, specifically increasing the adoption of Green Open Access. Richard believes there is a great role for funders in improving the adoption of Green Open Access and preprints. Funder requirements would increase compliance among scientists to post and cite preprints.
Watch the full call for more Q&A’s and in-depth discussion!
The April Community Call discussion focused on the past, present, and future of bioRxiv, medRxiv, and openRxiv. We were joined by Richard Sever, co-founder of bioRxiv and medRxiv and CSSO at openRxiv, preprint servers focusing on biology and biomedical science, which started at Cold Spring Harbor Laboratory.
Richard summarized the past 12 years of those preprint servers in a few impressive numbers:
However, the bioRxiv and medRxiv history is not just the number of posted or read preprints. Richard discussed that those servers’ 12 years of existence changed the life science community. More biologists are posting, reading, and citing preprints. They also do not need to worry about whether journals will accept a manuscript if it has already been posted as a preprint, as most journals accept such submissions (which was not always the case in the past). Preprints also receive support from founders and institutions that encourage or even mandate preprints, like the Gates Foundation, which has mandated that their grantees post preprints.
Richard also discussed the original goals behind creating preprint servers – to accelerate science and stimulate the evolution of the scientific publication system. Looking back at 12 years of the bioRxiv and medRxiv, Richard concluded that those goals were met.
First, preprints enabled researchers to make their research immediately available, rather than waiting for a scientific journal’s lengthy peer review process. One notable example of how preprints helped expedite science was during the COVID-19 pandemic, when the rapid sharing of scientific knowledge helped save lives. Richard gave an example of the results from the RECOVERY trial that were first posted as a preprint. The data showed the benefits of dexamethasone in severely ill patients with COVID-19. Since the data was available weeks before the journal publication, physicians could use it earlier, thus saving lives. He also referred to the estimation that if everyone shared research immediately via preprints, it could accelerate scientific discoveries fivefold.
Second, preprints facilitated experimentation in peer review, commentary, and other forms of feedback. Preprints enabled initiatives such as Peer Community In, Review Commons, PREreview, and many others to experiment with reviewing, commenting, and discussing scientific research.
He also discusses the future goals. First, in the future, he sees preprints as the primary means of disseminating research. Second, he is encouraging the directed evolution of preprints. This evolution aims to decouple dissemination and evaluation to improve peer review and verification.
He discussed two possible scenarios of evolution of preprinting: open ecosystem and publisher silo, an idea also dscussed in the op-ed posted on LSE.
In the open ecosystem, everyone posts preprints on a community preprint server and then different actions can be taken, depending on the manuscript, e.g, peer review, either traditional or decoupled, such as PCI or Review Commons; or other actions, such as commenting, or verifying key information by the badging services and so on.
The other option of this evolution is that preprints are in silos controlled by publishers. In this scenario, the researchers send a preprint to the commercial publisher, and they decide where it fits in the hierarchy of their journals. This preserves the journal hegemony and the journal name as a proxy.
Richard prefers the first scenario, which will ultimately lead to what he calls ‘the article of the future’, with many objects linked to it, such as preregistered reports, data sets, and reviews.
Numerous challenges are associated with the evolution of the preprinting system, but he believes that openRxiv is the answer to the challenges they face. penRxiv is not a preprint server, but an independent nonprofit organization that oversees bioRxiv and medRxiv to help establish long-term stability.
He believes that bioRxiv and medRxiv were successful experiments. Now it’s time to move from prototype to something that is operational long-term and steer it in the right direction. For this, openRxiv brought respected figures in the scientific community on board, many of whom have been involved in bioRxiv, medRxiv, and other preprint-related activities.
Following the talk, during the Q&A, Richard answered many questions from the participants. He elaborated on how preprint servers can serve authors from the Global South, as they are inclusive platforms and accept submissions worldwide.
Participants also asked about the idea of incremental preprints. Richard believes that we need to strike a balance between improving your paper and creating a new version of the manuscript, but not producing too many versions of your paper, because this would make it more difficult for readers. He also believes that this idea does not appeal to scientists themselves, as they often want to draw a line and decide to finish the project at some point.
Richard also discussed Open Access alternatives, specifically increasing the adoption of Green Open Access. Richard believes there is a great role for funders in improving the adoption of Green Open Access and preprints. Funder requirements would increase compliance among scientists to post and cite preprints.
Watch the full call for more Q&A’s and in-depth discussion!