A recent ASAPbio Community Call (February 26, 2025) was inspired by a preprint titled ‘Mapping the preprint review metadata transfer workflows.’ The preprint is a working group product borne out of the, ‘Supporting interoperability of preprint ... Maria presented first, defining preprint review metadata as “all kinds of information about the review record,” e.g., reviewer name, affiliation, link to preprint being reviewed, review outcome, assigned score, and more.
Preprints have the potential to bring about greater equity in the publishing process and academia more widely. However, the adoption of preprints varies significantly across academic fields and geographical regions. Across Africa, there is limited evidence regarding the number of preprints posted and used. However, the data that does exist points to a low number of published preprints across the region.
To better understand the awareness and perception of preprints from Africa-based researchers, a group of ASAPbio 2023 Fellows have designed a short survey. This survey will help direct efforts towards expanding the adoption of preprints in the Africa region.
If you’re a researcher based in Africa and have experience or thoughts about preprints please consider completing our short survey.