Dear subscribers,
It’s been a big month for preprints!
NIH encourages preprints
On March 24, the world’s largest biomedical research agency released a landmark policy on preprints and other interim research products. The notice states that “The NIH encourages investigators to use interim research products, such as preprints, to speed the dissemination and enhance the rigor of their work.” It explains that “Interim research products can be cited anywhere other research products are cited,” and indicates that after May 25, 2017, “awardees can claim these products on their progress report publication list. They can also report them on their RPPR […] and link them to their award in their My Bibliography account.”
The policy is also highly detailed, providing guidance on desirable qualities of preprint repositories and expectations for author practices (including funding and competing interests disclosures). The notice states that “the NIH strongly encourages awardees to select a Creative Commons Attribution (CC-BY) license or dedicate their work to the public domain.”
The announcement was covered in Science Magazine, The Scientist, and STAT, and more information on the NIH’s process can be found in a post on the NIH’s Open Mike blog. The new NIH policy was developed in consideration of responses submitted to last fall’s RFI, some of which (including ASAPbio’s) can be found on our website.
ASAPbio news
ASAPbio’s RFA for a Central Service (a PubMed Central-like aggregator for preprints) will close in about 3 weeks on April 30. To prepare for the evaluation process, we’ve invited external reviewers as described in the RFA. In order to ensure that a community-selected governing body can launch well ahead of the inception of the service, we are also revising a draft set of operating principles and bylaws for this board. We will be releasing this governance document for public comment in the coming weeks.
Those of you on Twitter may be familiar with the #ASAPbio hashtag, which is often populated by discussion and community news. To complement the hashtag, you can now follow @ASAPbio_ for major policy developments and updates on our work.
Thank you!
Jessica Polka
Director, ASAPbio
