Guest post by; Doherty Funmilayo PhD, Atoyebi Abdulwakeel O., Balogun Peter, Aguh Anthony and Adamolekun Emmanuel A hybrid training titled “Empowering Researchers: Leveraging Preprints for Academic Advancement” was organized by Yaba College of Technology, Centre for Research Support and Grants Management, Lagos, Nigeria on March 11, 2024 and sponsored by ASAPbio as one of their…
Are you new to preprints and want to learn more about their use? Have you been using preprints for a while and now want to engage others? Then our Fellows program is for you! The use of preprints in the life sciences has grown over recent years, and an important driver has been community support…
Traditional journal clubs are present in most labs and departments bringing together early career researchers to discuss and review a chosen article. These groups effectively perform peer review but often don’t share the comments with the authors. This year ASAPbio is launching a fund to support current journal clubs in performing (and sharing) peer reviews…
In 2023 we progressed 38 people through the third installment of the ASAPbio Fellows program. Together this group participated in cohort calls to provide fundamental knowledge and training around preprints in addition to multiple projects, which we celebrate here. Awareness of preprints in Africa The adoption of preprints across the globe has not been equitable,…
Introduction Since the launch of bioRxiv in 2013, preprints have seen an explosion in use and adoption across the life sciences. Preprints now represent ~10% of the biomedical literature and are seeing increasing recognition across funding bodies, policy makers, academics and universities in promotion and hiring decisions. However, this adoption and recognition is not globally…
In our November 2023 community call, we heard from Lonni Besancon (Assistant Professor, Linkoping University) about his work exposing fraudulent and unreliable science. Lonni began with an overview of how he started researching reliability issues and highlighted that this is not his primary role; indeed, it is a large issue in the current system that…
As this year’s Fellows program comes to an end we wanted to reflect back on the past 8 months. The 2023 Fellows have been involved in a variety of projects from crowd preprint review to exploring the perceptions of preprints from researchers across Africa. Throughout the program, we have been utilising a fun, if underused,…
Science is a community effort, but publishing has long been co-opted by commercial interests, where researchers’ labor in authoring, reviewing, and editing are used to bolster publishers’ profits. Preprints are free to post and read, but to what extent do commercial interests influence the space? The theme of Open Access week 2023 was “community over…
The practice of preprinting in the life sciences has grown rapidly. In addition to accelerating scientific publication, preprinting also has the potential to open new avenues of communication among researchers. For example, preprint peer review offers tremendous potential for changing the culture of scientific assessment, broadening participation, and enhancing the robustness of scholarship. While only…
Culture change happens within communities. While virtual programs like the ASAPbio Fellows and Community calls link preprint enthusiasts across continents, nothing beats face-to-face interactions. So, as in-person events picked up earlier this year, we created a new program to support discussions about preprints; the ASAPbio Local Hubs program with three community leaders. Here, two of…
Preprints have the potential to bring about greater equity in the publishing process and academia more widely. However, the adoption of preprints varies significantly across academic fields and geographical regions. Across Africa, there is limited evidence regarding the number of preprints posted and used. However, the data that does exist points to a low number…
Our fourth Community Call of 2023 featured a discussion about the use of preprints in research assessment. The adoption of any product or innovation requires the presence of appropriate incentives and preprints are no different. Academia is driven by research and researcher assessment; from funding bodies awarding grants, hiring committees assessing potential new faculty members…
Different institutions around the world have varying requirements for PhD students to graduate. Some require a thesis whilst others require published papers (or several!). Publishing a paper can take months or even years, delaying the graduation of students in programmes with this requirement. Delays in graduating can have serious consequences for students. Preprints speed up…