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Newsletter vol 27: Join the #PreprintReviewChallenge, Review Commons webinar, and more

Join the #PreprintReviewChallenge: Help us create the largest collection of preprint reviews in a day On September 22, ASAPbio will be hosting an online live preprint review event as part of Peer Review Week 2020. We will get together to write constructive comments and reviews on preprints, with the aim to develop the largest collection to date of…

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Newsletter vol 26: Benefits and concerns about preprints, August Community Call, #biopreprints2020 report and more

Perceived benefits and concerns about preprints – initial survey results  We had 546 responses to our survey about the perceived benefits and concerns around preprint – our thanks to everyone who shared their views. We will be taking a deeper dive into the data over the coming weeks but here are some initial takes from the responses: Main perceived…

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Newsletter Vol 25: Take our survey, open peer review trends, meet the ASAPbio Fellows & more

Share your views about preprints – take the surveyASAPbio and the attendees of the #biopreprints2020 workshop are looking to get community feedback on the perceived benefits and concerns around preprints. We are seeking perspectives from a wide range of stakeholders involved in research communication to better understand how preprinting is perceived across stakeholder groups and research disciplines. Complete…

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Newsletter vol 24: Preprints on Pubmed, community call, hiring for temporary role, #ShutDownSTEM

Preprints are in PubMed On the topic of preprints, “how do I find them?” remains one of the most common questions. While several search tools already index preprints, many require researchers to look outside of their normal workflows.  On June 9, the National Library of Medicine announced a pilot to include NIH-funded preprints in PubMed and PMC beginning this week.…

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Newsletter volume 23: Hello from Iratxe, COVID-19 preprint resources, increased visibility for journal review & preprint policies

Dear all, May has been a busy month for ASAPbio, we have launched new resources related to preprints, and continued to engage with many colleagues in conversations about transparency in peer review and open science; details below. Hello from Iratxe Earlier this month I joined ASAPbio as Associate Director. I am thrilled to be part of…

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Screengrab of video chat with ASAPbio community

Newsletter vol 22: Now launching the ASAPbio Fellows program

Today, we’re thrilled to announce the ASAPbio Fellow program – a six-month program structured to provide participants with tools and skills to drive discussions about the productive use of preprints in the life sciences, and to become ASAPbio representatives at their institutions or scientific conferences. New on the blog New resource: a directory preprint server policies…

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ASAPbio newsletter vol 21: COVID-19 webinar, new board members, open access RFI

Webinar: Rapid communication of COVID-19 research 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 talks will…

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ASAPbio newsletter vol 20 – #bioPreprints2020, Review Commons updates, and more meeting reports

Dear subscribers, I hope 2020 is treating you well! Since our last update, we’ve been working on a variety of meetings and conference sessions. Here are the highlights. #bioPreprints2020: Building trust in preprints On January 20 and 21, 2020, over 30 representatives from preprint servers, publishers, funders, and organizations working on standards, indexing, and metadata…

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ASAPbio newsletter vol 18 – Review Commons is coming soon!

Dear subscribers, This month, we share upcoming opportunities to learn, discuss, and influence the future of preprints and transparent peer review. Coming soon: Review Commons We’ve partnered with EMBO to launch a new journal-independent platform that peer-reviews research papers before submission to a journal. Review Commons will provide authors with a Refereed Preprint (using bioRxiv’s…

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ASAPbio newsletter vol 17 – Revealing quality in peer review & considering influencers of preprint success

Dear subscribers,  This month, we share upcoming opportunities to learn, discuss and influence the future of preprints and transparent peer review. Peer review week event: ReimagineReview community call on revealing quality in peer review through increased transparency The theme of this year’s Peer Review Week, “quality in peer review,” should resonate with anyone—author, referee, or…

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ASAPbio newsletter vol 16 – Bias in peer review & new research to understand preprint adoption

Dear subscribers,  This month, we present opportunities to discuss bias in peer review and share our latest research activities about preprints. We hope you’ll join us at upcoming events and discussions. Discuss bias in peer review with ReimagineReview Scientific peer review is ideally based solely on the merit of the research; in the real world,…

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ASAPbio newsletter vol 14 – New team members, calling all preprint platforms & peer review experiments, preprint licensing

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…

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ASAPbio newsletter vol 12 – peer review meeting summary, preprint survey, and collecting commenting venues

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…

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ASAPbio newsletter vol 11 – Peer review meeting, peer review service proposal, welcome new board members

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…

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ASAPbio newsletter vol 10 – Meeting on 7/19, licensing task force

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).…

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ASAPbio newsletter vol 9 – NIH encourages the use of preprints, Central Service update, ASAPbio on Twitter

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…

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ASAPbio newsletter vol 8 – Scientific Society engagement, a new grant, ASAPbio retrospective

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…

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ASAPbio newsletter vol 7 – Funders sign onto principles for preprint development, RFA released, scientific society town hall

Dear subscribers, Since the summer of 2016, ASAPbio has been iterating on a proposal for a “Central Service” for life sciences preprints, a database that would aggregate preprints from multiple sources and make them easier to access by humans and machines. We explain the benefits of such a service in a recent blog post. Yesterday, 11…

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ASAPbio newsletter vol 6 – One quick action this week to support preprints

Dear subscribers, We need your help for an urgent action this week. The NIH released a RFI (request for information) on “including preprints and interim research products in the NIH applications and reports.”  ASAPbio, and many individual scientists, responded with arguments in favor of providing scientists with the option, not requirement, of citing preprints in NIH applications/reports as public evidence…

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ASAPbio newsletter vol 5 – Tell the NIH what you think about preprints, Crossref service launches today, new resources

Dear ASAPbio subscriber, Tell the NIH what you think about preprints The NIH has recently released a request for information (RFI) on the use of preprints and other interim research products. We encourage all interested parties to respond to the RFI using the submission website by the deadline of December 9th (extended from November 29th).…

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ASAPbio newsletter vol 4 – Technical workshop, new website features, ambassadors

Dear ASAPbio subscriber, Here’s what’s new: We held a successful Technical Workshop to discuss the feasibility of creating a central preprint service. All the notes are online, and you can also view the archived video stream. We’re working on a request for information to identify potential suppliers, their implementation strategies, and their predicted costs and…

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ASAPbio newsletter vol 3 – REQUESTING FEEDBACK on a central preprint service for biology

Dear ASAPbio subscriber, It’s been an exciting few months at ASAPbio! Here’s what’s happened: The report of our February meeting at HHMI was published in Science, and Ron Vale and Tony Hyman recently published an article about priority of discovery & preprints in eLife. ASAPbio was awarded grants totalling $400,000 in provisional funding from the…

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ASAPbio newsletter vol 2 – Your help requested for the ASAPbio Funders’ Workshop

Dear ASAPbio subscriber, Last week, we announced the ASAPbio Funders’ Workshop, a small meeting to be held at NIH on May 24th to coordinate support among private and public funding agencies for preprints in biology. Representatives from existing preprint servers will attend, as will some junior and senior scientists. To ensure that the voice of…

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