Victoria Yan started her preprint advocate journey as the Project Coordinator for ASAPbio’s ReimagineReview. She is now an Open Science Research Information Specialist at EMBL in Heidelberg, Germany. In the following interview, we discuss how EMBL is promoting the use of recognition of preprints from an institutional perspective. How do preprints fit into the bigger…
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…
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…
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…
As the fall conference season approaches, consider maximizing the impact of your talk or poster by posting it as a preprint! While you can also archive your slides or the image of your poster on Zenodo, Figshare, or another repository (a great way to increase your visibility and get a DOI), there are several benefits…
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…
This is the third in our series of posts highlighting the winners of the ASAPbio competition ‘Make your negative result a preprint winner,’ which celebrates the value of using preprints to share negative and inconclusive scientific results. In this post, we hear from Livia Songster (University of California San Diego), the first author of the preprint ‘Woronin…
This is the second in our series of posts highlighting the winners of the ASAPbio competition ‘Make your negative result a preprint winner,’ which celebrate the value of using preprints to share negative and inconclusive scientific results. In this post, we hear from Lilya Andrianova (University of Exeter Medical School & University of Glasgow), the first author…
Last week we announced the winners of the ASAPbio competition ‘Make your negative result a preprint winner’, a project by a group of ASAPbio Fellows that aimed to celebrate the value of using preprints to share negative and inconclusive scientific results. We have talked to the authors of the winning preprints to learn more about…
Last month, the US NIH released a Request for Information (RFI) for feedback on its planned implementation of last year’s White House Office of Science and Technology Policy (OSTP) directive to make all US federally-funded research immediately publicly accessible. In addition to ensuring that “publications resulting from NIH-supported research are made available in PMC without…
We are pleased to announce the winners of the ASAPbio competition ‘Make your negative result a preprint winner’, which aimed to highlight the value of sharing negative and inconclusive scientific results via preprints. We know that science advances through a persistent exploration of research questions and approaches, and that this brings with it the fact…
Preprints help to improve the overall quality, integrity and reproducibility of research outputs, as highlighted in UNESCO’s recommendations on open science. Preprint adoption is increasing across scientific disciplines and geographies thanks to the involvement of multiple players, including researchers, publishers, institutions, societies, and funders. Funders can significantly influence, and benefit from, the preprint landscape by…
ASAPbio hosts a global community and we regularly organize online events and activities for audiences across the world. At the same time, we recognize that in-person interactions can be invaluable for developing new relationships and the deeper engagement needed for change in science communication. To support and amplify the work that community members do in…
Our first Community Call of 2023 hosted a discussion about the use of preprints by communities in East Asia. While there has been increasing use of preprints in the last few years, trends so far suggest that communities from different geographical regions are at different stages of adoption. An analysis of bioRxiv preprints by Abdill…
Are you new to preprints and want to learn more about their use? Have you been wondering what the buzz is about preprint review? 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…
Preprints provide a great avenue for researchers to get feedback on their work from the community. This type of community feedback is particularly valuable when gathered on early preprints, that is, on manuscripts that are still work-in-progress, prior to their submission for journal publication. The feedback from the community can allow authors to get a…