Blog post by Sarah Stryeck and Sandra Franco Iborra We are very happy to announce that the ASAPbio Community Action Group kicked off on March 15th. With this Community Action Group, ASAPbio is looking to support our community members in spreading the word about preprints within their institutions and communities and inspire them to take…
Today, as described in Project Coordinator Jigisha’s Patel opinion piece in The Scientist, we’re pleased to share a series of resources and guidelines emerging from our work on the representation of preprints to broad audiences. These infographics summarize more detailed documents drafted by working groups who considered how to preprint servers, researchers, institutions, and journalists…
Blog post by Sónia Gomes Pereira As scientists, we spend a great deal of time obsessing about a particular subject, sometimes crossing the thin line of what is recommended or healthy… Yet, publishing an article takes several months or even years of revisions, only to – more often than not – result in little changes…
We’re thrilled to announce that the 2021 cycle of the ASAPbio Fellow program is now open for applications. Interested in preprints? Looking to develop your own preprint initiative? Keen to connect with others interested in science communication? Then the ASAPbio Fellow program is for you! The ASAPbio Fellows program runs for six months and provides…
On January 14th, 2021, ASAPbio hosted the #PreprintsInThePublicEye: Challenges and Solutions in an Age of Misinformation event. With speakers from the worlds of preprints, academia, and journalism, the event sought to highlight the problem of misinformation and the misrepresentation of research in the context of preprints and COVID-19. We asked, how can we know what…
Blog post by ASAPbio Fellow Mafalda Pimentel Having to isolate due to a pandemic can also have some silver linings. Forcefully away from the bench, I had no more excuses to evade a question I had been increasingly interested in – how are preprints shaping the present and future of science? Not long after I…
Last week we ran Twitter polls for preprint servers, research institutions, researchers and journalists to provide feedback on the outcomes of the Preprints in the Public Eye project. The project aim is to encourage the responsible reporting of research to avoid its misrepresentation or misinterpretation. The project involves stakeholders representing researchers, institutions, preprint servers, publishers…
January 14, 2021. 4pm GMT/ 11am EST/ 8am PST. Covid-19 has brought 2020 to the height of this Age of Misinformation, with particular concerns about the media reporting of research posted as preprints. It has not been all doom and gloom however. This year has provided a strong impetus to develop novel ways to improve…
Post by ASAPbio Fellow Aleksandra Petelski The usage of preprints in the clinical world is drastically increasing, especially during the current COVID-19 pandemic. In this rapidly developing situation, medRxiv already received over 8,000 preprints (and counting) involving COVID-19 at the current time of writing [1]. The use of preprints as a means for science dissemination…
On December 4, 2020, ASAPbio hosted #PreprintSprint presentations, where 16 projects (down from the 21 presented at the kickoff, partially due to mergers and collaborations) updated approximately 100 attendees on what they had accomplished during the sprint. During the 20 days of the sprint, 9 projects started new collaborations, 14 updated their proposal to incorporate feedback,…
Post by Iratxe Puebla, Associate Director, ASAPbio Although it is hard to believe, we are already in the last month of 2020, and with it we have just closed the first cohort of the ASAPbio Fellows program. While we had had an ASAPbio Community for several years, we felt that if we wanted to encourage…
Blog post by the ASAPbio Fellows Giri Athrey and Corrado Nai. The adoption of preprints in the life sciences has increased enormously in the last few years, and preprints have played an important role in the dissemination of the latest findings related to the COVID-19/SARS-CoV-2 pandemic. While preprints are a common form of communication among…
Blog post by ASAPbio Fellows Bradly Alicea, Marco Fumasoni, Yamini Ravichandran & Sarah Stryeck The ASAPBio Fellows program supports early-career researchers and those interested in topics related to the intersection of open science and scientific communication in becoming a resource about preprints for their communities. As part of the program, one working group of Fellows…
On Friday, 2020-11-13, 100 participants gathered at the #PreprintSprint Kickoff to workshop 21 ideas for encouraging more feedback on preprints. While the bulk of the event was spent in breakout sessions, the introductory lightning talks can be found below. Slides can be found here. Project leads are currently integrating ideas and feedback received at the…
Blog post by ASAPbio Fellow Suraj Kannan The recent emergence of preprints in clinical research (most prominently through medRxiv) has raised a number of questions about their potential for benefit/harm. Preprints and preprint servers have existed in various basic and hard science disciplines for the past several decades, and have improved speed of dissemination and…
We’re thrilled to support discussion and feedback to 21 exciting proposals at the Kickoff of the #PreprintSprint on Friday, November 13! At this event, project leads will share their ideas for how to encourage more feedback on preprints, and they will also share what input and resources they need to do that. We hope that…
“We have to be the change we want to see… increasing preprint engagement requires a system-wide change in how we value publications and commencing a dialogue that we can all be a part of.” As part of Clinician’s Corner we would like practicing clinicians to share their opinions and experiences on preprint usage within the…
This week marks Open Access Week 2020, which is running with the theme “Open with Purpose: Taking Action to Build Structural Equity and Inclusion.” The theme provides a reminder that openness in science communication is a means to other uses rather than just an ultimate goal in itself. The same principle applies to preprints; we…
Community feedback on preprints makes rapid science more robust. Review and commentary can help authors improve their articles; curation can provide readers with helpful context and enhance discoverability. But despite the benefits, barriers to reviewing and curating preprints remain. Potential reviewers and curators see few incentives to organize and comment on preprints, and reviews can…
A series aimed at opening the dialogue surrounding preprint usage in the clinical community. Run by the ASAPbio Fellows Vanessa Bortoluzzi, Kirsty Ferguson, Suraj Kannan and Aleksandra Petelski. Today, scientific discovery moves at a faster pace than even a decade ago [1]. However, the publishing process required by journals does not seem able to keep…