Who were there?
- The event was co-facilitated by Naomi Penfold (Innovations Officer at eLife), Kenneth Harris ( ASAPbio Ambassador & Principal Investigator at UCL), Robert Kiley (Open Research - Development Lead), and myself Samantha Hindle (ASAPbio Ambassador & Assistant Professional Researcher at UCSF).
- We were joined by ~17 folks (6 PhD students, 11 postdocs, 0 PIs, except Kenneth!).
- Most of the people in the room had published a paper and 2 had posted a preprint
What are preprints?
~50% of the room were aware of what preprints are:
- a way to communicate science
- a way to get feedback
There is a lot of
information out there about preprints, but a great place to start is with this
video. You can also find more information at the ASAPbio website (see below).
What is ASAPbio?
ASAPbio is a scientist-driven initiative to explore the productive use of preprints in biology. They are a non-profit lead by Jessica Polka, with support from Ron Vale, and since February 2016 they have catalyzed the change in culture and acceptance of preprints in biology and the biomedical sciences. Their main goals are: to encourage stakeholder support for preprints (e.g. publishers, funders and institutions); to enable infrastructure and services for preprint submission, discoverability, and use; and to help educate and change the culture around preprint acceptance and credibilty of use. More information can be found at
ASAPbio.org.Participants' questions and concerns:
Are preprints the final article? An earlier stage?
- For the majority of cases, at least in the biological sciences, preprints are the same version of the manuscript as you would submit to a journal. Therefore, preprints often will contain a summary/abstract, introduction, methods, results, discussion, reference list, and associated figures and supplemental files. However, the freedom inherent in preprints allows for researchers to submit their work at an earlier stage too, and allow the research to grow in a truly open fashion; as preprint servers have version control, researchers can upload new, updated versions of their manuscript as the data grows.
What are the benefits of preprints?
- Preprints get the work out quickly, they get more visibility sooner, and they allow for feedback before final publication
- Funders have explicit policies now to allow the citing of preprints on applications
- Preprints are not the same as publication, but they are accepted as timely evidence of research progress
- Funders are now implicit that it is not enough to say that a manuscript is “in submission” as you can post a preprint instead
- You get citations too - they accumulate while paper is going through peer review (via the DOI)
- PLoS genetics now have preprint editors. This flips the emphasis in the publishing system from authors seeking journal interest to journals seeking authors' interest, hence turning the preprint server into a marketplace. If this flipped system takes off, this would allow scientists to return their focus to their research rather than spending unnecessary research time crafting cover letter after cover letter to solicit interest from journals.
- Most people in the room seemed to like the idea of preprint servers as a marketplace for journals, i.e. that journals will search preprint servers and solicit preprints from there, rather than authors wasting time contacting the journals if they are not interested: flip the system.
Does it devalue novelty? Eg where you publish?
- Kenneth published nature neuroscience, two yrs after preprint, no problem. His paper was a methods paper, lots of people were using it before final publication
- Explicit journal policies - at first Kenneth asked them but now he doesn't
How is a preprint structured? Are there criteria for how it should be presented?
- This depends on the server
- NIH guideline for citing a preprint state that it has to be a complete manuscript (not an idea) but could be a data paper or a methods paper.
- Most people post preprints at the time of submission to a journal
Is the understanding of the use of preprints evolving?
- point when ready to publish
- Kenneth used it to communicate work that might not otherwise go to a journal (e.g. PhD student leaving, better than thesis)
Could preprints fuel a "fake news" problem?
- False or exaggerated research/news also appears in journals
- Scientific community works to rebut. There has been evidence of this working well on social media, e.g. two preprints that lacked methods sections and were quickly prompted by social media users to add the methods (Craig venter paper and Aviv regev paper)
- You should be sceptical regardless. In fact preprints promote best practices in how to read a scientific manuscript, i.e. don't take everything you read as proven fact.
- If you publish rubbish everyone sees it with your name on it
- Good to encourage skepticism, particularly if peer review isn’t working
Is it ok to post a preprint without your PIs/collaborator's permission?
- As is required by journals, on submission to a preprint server, the submitting author must confirm that all authors have agreed to the posting of the preprint.
- One participant stated that she would be suspicious of the preprint if there was only one listed author. Similar situation to grad students going rogue
Are there standards for preprints and preprint servers?
- ASAPbio are trying to establish preprint server standards. This matters to funders as they need to have a directory of reputable preprint servers which they will accept for grant application citations.
- Preprint servers have plagiarism checks and screening, for example, bioRxiv have affiliates (Principal Investigators) that screen the preprints asking the question “is this science?” BioRxiv also have a separate screening mechanism for clinical research: clinicians answer the question "If this preprint is accepted, could it cause harm?" If so, the preprint is rejected.
- MedRxiv will soon be launched to house preprints for clinical science. This server will have a more stringent process.
- Cell Press sneak peek preview: Cell Press have their own preprint server, but unfortunately this server isn't completely open as access to the preprints requires a (free) subscription to Mendeley.
Why are there multiple preprint servers?
- Immaturity of the situation: preprints have only really taken off in biology over the past couple of years; therefore, it's still early days for knowing exactly what we need from preprint servers. It is useful to have multiple options available to suit the need of the users and to drive progression.
- Some of the preprint servers offer some different features, which might suit one discipline over another
- Some preprint servers are discipline specific, others are cross disciplinary
Can you publish negative findings?
- Yes
- Also, bioRxiv have a category for contradictory findings, and a category for confirmatory findings, in addition to a new results category
How can we increase the discovery of preprints? Are they just lost to the ether?
- Just like for journals, you can subscribe to a subject-specific RSS feed, which will send you regular email updates of new preprints in your area
- Social media, e.g. Twitter, is a really effective mode of discovering new preprints. BioRxiv send out a tweet for each preprint upon acceptance. You could tweet with a good video or image etc. If you have a result you’re proud of, certainly shout about it
- Word of mouth recommendations
- Preprint Journal Clubs: the incorporation of preprints into journal club discussions not only helps improve preprint discoverability, but it also provides an opportunity to provide feedback to the authors to help improve the manuscript before it's published. By writing a preprint review, this also encourages early career scientists to practice peer review. There are platforms available to post your preprint review online, e.g. PREreview. A blog post about preprint journal clubs and available platforms can be found on eLife Labs here, and a commentary about the role of preprint journal clubs in peer review can be found on ASAPbio's website here.
Due to the OA nature of preprints, why should we pay to publish OA?
- Some funder's policies state that you need to submit to Open Access journals
- Wellcome Open Research is an alternative to OA journals
Do we need journals if the future is that we post preprints and then receive community peer review - do we need a journal to put a stamp on it?
- Researchers are currently evaluated based on their journal publication record. Unless this changes, journals will remain.
- The impact of preprints - data of downloads as preprints versus impact of paper- may help to drive this change
- Publisher adds value with value of review
- Researchers should be asking for transparency in costs at journal
PREreview: Post, Read, and Engage with preprint reviews