To drive ASAPbio’s mission to raise awareness of preprints and encourage their productive use in the life sciences, we work closely with the ASAPbio Community, a group of researchers and others involved in research communication who interact and exchange information and feedback around the use of preprints. The ASAPbio Community members: • Interact via Slack…
A preprint is a scientific manuscript that is uploaded by the authors to a public server. The preprint contains data and methods, but has not yet been accepted by a journal. While some servers perform brief quality-control inspections (for more details on the practices of individual servers, see asapbio.org/preprint-servers), the author’s manuscript is typically posted…
Yes. While both preprints and journal articles enable researchers to disseminate their findings to the research community, they are complementary in that preprints represent an opportunity to disseminate at an early stage. In most cases, the same work posted as preprint also is submitted for peer review at a journal. Thus, preprints (rapid, but not…
Transpose is a community database of journal policies on peer review and preprinting developed with major contributions from ASAPbio. Launched almost a year ago after a sprint at the 2018 Scholarly Communications Institute, Transpose includes information on whether peer review is blinded, transparency of reviewer identities and reports, co-reviewing policies, versions of papers that can…
Many preprint servers are integrated with one or more journals, making it possible to submit to both a server and a journal at once. View these integrations in the Preprint Server Directory. Preprint servers can also serve as a “marketplace” for journal editors to invite submissions to their journals. PLOS Genetics has “preprint editors,” described…
Because journal publication can be slow and the peer review process unpredictable, preprints provide a mechanism for rapidly communicating research with the scientific community. This is good for science overall, since disseminating new knowledge or techniques leads to new discoveries. However, there are tangible benefits to the scientist who uses preprints, a subset of which…
In efforts to tackle the ongoing COVID-19 pandemic, research related to SARS-CoV-2 as well as the public health and societal ramifications of COVID-19 is taking place faster and on a larger scale than ever before. Researchers are making use of preprints to freely and quickly disseminate COVID-19 research, and a significant proportion of research related…
A preprint is usually the same manuscript that is submitted to a journal, although other types of information that are currently difficult to publish (e.g. negative results) could be transmitted. Please see our related questions in the “Submitting preprints” section.
The COVID-19 pandemic has profoundly affected many elements of life, and scientific research is no exception. Research related to SARS-CoV-2 and the pandemic is taking place at unprecedented speed and scale, and many scientists have seen their line of research refocused to support efforts in tackling the ongoing outbreak. At the same time, other scientists…
Many publishers have launched their own preprint servers (including Wiley’s Under Review, Springer Nature’s use of the Research Square In Review service, and MDPI’s preprints.org).However, there is no need for a journal to launch their own preprint server as there are many repositories that can fulfill this function. For a list of servers relevant to…
Design a clear and comprehensive preprint policy and include it in the Instructions to Authors. You may want to consider elements such as: For sample preprint policies, see eLife, PLOS, and Nature Research. Ideally, collect preprint information (such as the DOI or other identifier) upon manuscript submission. Consider technological integrations with preprint servers to facilitate…
A review process is considered “double blind” if neither authors nor reviewers are aware of one another’s identities. Though it is relatively rare in the life sciences, it is more prevalent in social science and the humanities. Double blind review is one approach to mitigating biases in review, which can range from a bias against…
We’re thrilled to announce that Iratxe Puebla has joined ASAPbio as our new Associate Director! In this role, Iratxe will develop our newly-announced ASAPbio Fellows program, spearhead community engagement, and create resources and tools that foster awareness of preprints. Following a background in biochemistry research, Iratxe moved into open access editorial roles, first at BMC…
We are tracking the policies of both funders (including NIH, HHMI, Wellcome, MRC, HFSP, CZI, CIHR, Simons, EMBO, Helmsley, Cancer Research UK, & BBSRC) and universities that have considered preprints in assessment processes (including UC Davis, NYU, UCSC, UT Austin, and the Rockefeller University). For example, On March 24, 2017, the US NIH released NOT-OD-17-050,…
In the present day reward system, journal publications play a major role in funding and promotions. For such reasons, the vast majority of research-paper preprints in physics (ie, not meeting proceedings, reviews, etc) are also submitted to journals (see slide 13 in Paul Ginsparg’s talk), even though work is one’s field is generally always seen…
Europe PMC began indexing preprints in July of 2018. Preprints are also indexed in search tools such as Google Scholar, PrePubMed, and OSF preprints. On June 1, 2020, NCBI announced a pilot to include NIH-funded preprints in PubMed Central, beginning, in the first phase, with preprints relevant to COVID-19.
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…
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. Participants in the ASAPbio Fellow program will engage in a…