Predatory journals, as defined by COPE in a thoughtful discussion document, are those that operate for profit in a “deceptive or fraudulent way and without any regard for quality assurance.” These journals undermine trust in science by enabling the dissemination of flawed work under false banners of quality. Recently, ICMJE and COPE made recommendations to…
This event has passed. Watch recording here. Tuesday, March 31, 12pm-1:30pm ET (9am PT, 5pm BST, 6pm CEST – see in your time zone) Join ASAPbio and the Knowledge Futures Group for a conversation about new ways of sharing scientific information relevant to the coronavirus pandemic via preprints, rapid peer review, and more. Individual…
Alice Meadows, Director of Community Engagement, and Jill O’Neill, Director of Content, NISO Preprints have come a long way in the past few years. The granddaddy of digital preprint platforms is, of course, arXiv (launched in 1991). But although it was joined by a handful of others over the years, including SSRN way back in…
In conversations about preprints in the UK, the question is often raised: ‘are preprints included in REF?’ In brief: yes. This is most likely to be applicable for any research manuscript that is prepared close to the REF2021 submission deadline, and is deemed to be amongst your best work in the current cycle, but which…
The Center for Scientific Review (CSR), National Institute of Health are working to improve awareness of the NIH policy (NOT-OD-17-050) that encourages citation of preprints in grant applications and reports. In response to feedback submitted by ASAPbio on May 30, Kristin Kramer, Ph.D., at the Office of Communications for the CSR, stated (June 11, 2019):…
Those who have been following ASAPbio for a while know that journal policies on preprinting are always in flux. As adoption of preprints—and editors’ comfort with them—increase, these changes are typically positive. However, one potential downside to a rapidly-evolving policy landscape is the potential difficulty authors may face in finding their footing, especially when preprint…
We share a listing of 15 different products or services in use or in development for sharing preprints online.
By Jessica Polka (ASAPbio), Donna Okubo (PLOS), and Tim Vollmer (Creative Commons) Today we’re happy to share two new documents that we hope will aid researchers in their decision to share early work as preprints. Even while the practice of publishing preprints continues to grow, we know from our community outreach that there are still…
A July 24 article by Tom Sheldon of the Science Media Centre raised concerns about the use of preprints in the media. Soon after, nine eLife ambassadors (some of which are also ASAPbio ambassadors) responded in a preprint entitled “Maintaining confidence in the reporting of scientific outputs.” Many of the same sentiments are echoed the following…
By Olavo B. Amaral Institute of Medical Biochemistry, Federal University of Rio de Janeiro, Brazil As the preprint movement gains traction in biology, the time is ripe to revisit some aspects of scientific publication that we view as fundamental – first and foremost of which is the peer review process itself. Common concerns about preprints…
For authors, one of the most exciting potential benefits of preprints is the ability to attract early feedback from broad and diverse sources during the preparation of a scientific manuscript. Preprint journal clubs can provide this input – and a more meaningful review experience for their own members as well. Here are some examples and resources for setting them up. Prachee…
Preprinting in biology is gaining steam, but the process is still far from normal: the upload rate to all preprint servers is about 1% that of PubMed. The most obvious way for individual scientists to help turn the tide is, of course, to preprint their own work. But given that it now takes longer to…
Angela DePace, Assistant Professor, Department of Systems Biology, Harvard Medical School I believe strongly in open access (mainly because everyone deserves access to the scientific literature, but also because of the immorality of making large profits from free academic labor and the unsustainability of library subscription prices). I also believe in open peer review; I strive to…
Take a picture of yourself and/or your coauthors celebrating the submission of a preprint and post it in the comments below (click the icon to at the bottom left of the text field to upload an image). Don’t forget to include a link to the preprint if it’s already available! You can get a link…
If you have any news relevant to ASAP – a change in journal policies, a local event (even in the early stages of organization), a new article, etc, please leave a comment below.
GENETICS and G3: Genes|Genomes|Genetics, peer-reviewed, peer-edited journals published by the Genetics Society of America (GSA), are proud to support the posting of preprints. Here, we outline our experience in a draft statement. Since 2012, in response to requests from members of our community, the GSA Journals have supported the posting of preprints. In 2015, we…
Lachlan Coin, Institute for Molecular Bioscience, The University of Queensland, Brisbane, Australia Darya Vanichkina, Centenary Institute, University of Sydney, Sydney, Australia Alicia Oshlack, Murdoch Childrens Research Institute, Royal Children’s Hospital, Melbourne, Australia Transparency and openness are extremely beneficial for science. The immediate and open publication of findings via preprint servers results in rapid dissemination of…
David L. Stern Janelia Research Campus HHMI I have been following the discussion about preprints closely over the past few months and I am won over by the arguments that science papers should be made available freely to everyone as soon as authors feel that the work is complete. Posting papers to preprint servers is…
Gary McDowell, Future of Research and Tufts University, and Pandelis Perakakis, Mind, Brain and Behaviour Research Centre, University of Granada, Spain Please address any correspondence to garymcdow@gmail.com and peraka@ugr.es In reforming the culture of peer review and moving towards a system that embraces the use and recognition of pre-print servers, we are cognizant of the…
John R. Inglis and Richard Sever, Cold Spring Harbor Laboratory Please address any correspondence to inglis@cshl.edu and sever@cshl.edu bioRxiv (biorxiv.org) is a not-for-profit, online archiving and distribution service for preprints[1] of research papers in the life sciences. It was launched in November 2013 by Cold Spring Harbor Laboratory, a research and educational institution, and receives financial support from…