Updates and announcements from ASAPbio
Today, we’re excited to announce the launch of ReimagineReview, a registry of platforms and experiments innovating around peer review. We now have the technology to experiment with peer review and research evaluation in ways that were not possible decades ago. Many such experiments are already underway—both within the traditional journal system and outside of it—that…
The ScholCommLab and ASAPbio are seeking a Visiting Scholar to collaborate with us on a special project about preprint usage and sciences communication.
Dear subscribers, It’s been a while! Here’s what’s been keeping us busy: New team members We’re delighted to welcome five new people to the team! From left to right: Phil Bourne (Professor, University of Virginia), Jennifer Lin (Director of Product Management, Crossref), and Kristen Ratan (Co-founder and Executive Director, Collaborative Knowledge Foundation) have joined the…
We share a listing of 15 different products or services in use or in development for sharing preprints online.
We’re thrilled to share that Naomi Penfold, PhD has joined us as ASAPbio’s new Associate Director, starting today! In this capacity, Naomi will manage and grow the community of ASAPbio ambassadors, create resources to enable advocacy for (and education about) preprints, and drive discussions on best practices. The position is supported by ASAPbio’s newly-formed Member Advisory…
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…
Preprints in biology have gained incredible momentum over the last few years, with over 2,000 being posted each month. But, in the context of all published papers, these numbers are still tiny: the rate of preprint posting is <3% of the research that is indexed by PubMed. Will the preprinting become the norm only in…
On February 7-9, 2018, editors, publisher, funders, and researchers gathered at HHMI Headquarters in Chevy Chase, MD to discuss innovations in peer review. A clear majority of participants at the meeting agreed that publishing peer review reports (ie, the contents of peer review, whether anonymized or not), would benefit the research community by increasing transparency of…
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…
Dear subscribers, Hope July is treating you well! Here are some recent updates from ASAPbio and the world of preprints and open peer review. We’re hiring (please help us spread the word!) Preprints now appear at Europe PMC A digest of recent preprint and peer review news Job posting: advance the use of preprints in…
2018-09-25 update: This posting is now closed. Join us to help make scholarly communication in the life sciences more open and efficient by catalyzing cultural change around the use of preprints! About ASAPbio We’re a young 501(c)(3) nonprofit that got its start in start in 2015 as an informal group of researchers who organized…
Dear subscribers, This month, we summarize a recent meeting on peer review and present two requests: Support for open reports (signed or not): summary of the HHMI/Wellcome/ASAPbio Peer Review meeting On February 7-9, 2018, a group of approximately 90 junior and senior scientists, publishers, editors, and funders convened at HHMI Headquarters in Chevy Chase, MD…
Dear subscribers, Hope 2018 is off to a great start for you! We have a few exciting announcements: Save the date: Transparency, Recognition, and Innovation in Peer Review in the Life Sciences On February 7-8, tune in to asapbio.org/peer-review to watch a webcast of a meeting we’re co-hosting with HHMI and Wellcome Trust on how…
On July 19, preprint service providers, funders, and researchers gathered in Cambridge, MA and via videoconference for a live-streamed ASAPbio workshop about the evolving preprint ecosystem (see video recording and collaborative notes). The goal of the meeting was to assess outstanding needs in light of recent developments, including CZI’s partnership with bioRxiv. At the meeting,…
Dear subscribers, The preprint ecosystem is growing rapidly. The CZI/bioRxiv partnership will fuel the expansion of the leading preprint server in the life sciences, and many other servers and platforms with varying degrees of disciplinary overlap exist or are planned (arXiv, PeerJ Preprints, preprints.org, OSF Preprints, ChemRxiv, SSRN, SciELO, PsyArxiv, EngArXiv, SocArXiv, Authorea, F1000Research, etc).…
Every month, more and more life scientists are choosing to post a preprint. This decision can give scientists visibility in their field, establish priority of their work in progress, gain recognition by funding agencies, and elicit feedback to improve their manuscript. But once the decision to preprint is made, authors posting to some servers are…
Funding agencies are crucial to the development of the preprint movement. The adoption of preprints by the life sciences community has been accelerated by grant-making policies that recognize these manuscripts as a valid form of scholarly communication. Investments in preprint infrastructure, services, and technologies are thus necessary to build capacity for growth. The latest strong support…
May 10, 2017 update: ASAPbio has announced a four-month suspension of the RFA process to reassess the preprint ecosystem and community needs. Preprints (scientific manuscripts that have been posted prior to completion of peer review) allow for the direct exchange of knowledge between scientists. They constitute a global public good that promotes scientific progress. However,…
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…
Dear subscribers, Last month, we held a Town Hall meeting for Scientific Societies at NAS in Washington, DC. The meeting featured presentations by representatives of ASAPbio, NIH, and scientific societies who are innovating with preprints and publishing. More information and a video recording of the meeting is available online. At the meeting, Neil Thakur of…