This document summarizes Jessica Polka's presentation on emerging visions for preprints. Some key points include: 1) Preprints allow for faster dissemination of research which can accelerate discovery and collaboration. They also help prevent duplication of efforts. 2) Authors want and receive feedback on preprints from other researchers through forums like bioRxiv comments and social media. Making this feedback more transparent could help readers and editors. 3) While preprints are not a replacement for peer-reviewed publications, they allow authors to share work earlier. Versioning of published articles also needs to be improved to allow for corrections. 4) Trust in preprints comes from transparency around moderation practices by different preprint

1. Emerging vision
2019-11-15, NISO/NFAIS
Jessica Polka
@jessicapolka, @ASAPbio_, #ASAPbio
These slides: tinyurl.com/niso-polka

2. Disclosures
● PhD: UCSF, Biochemistry/Cell Biology
● Postdoc: Harvard Medical School,
Synthetic biology
● ASAPbio Director: UCSF
● Executive Director: ASAPbio
Other affiliations:
● Current: cOAlition S Ambassador, Knowledge Futures
Group (MIT), Publications (MDPI), ASCB Public Policy
Committee, Rescuing Biomedical Research, PREreview
advisory board
● Past: Whitehead Institute, Future of Research, NASEM
NGRI
ASAPbio
a 501(c)(3) promoting transparency &
innovation in life sciences publishing

3. Photo by calafellvalo - CC BY-
NC-ND
Science is competitive
Photo by George Makris
Speed in dissemination accelerates discovery
and collaborative

4. Preprints conserve resources
In an NIH survey of their 1961-1967 hard-copy preprint experiment,
Information Exchange Groups (IEGs), 466 researchers reported
1,111 occasions when information circulated had informed their
research decisions and 346 occasions when information circulated
in the group had prevented needless duplication of effort.
Overall, the IEG survey suggested that approximately 10,000,000
USD/year (approximately 74,500,000 in 2018 dollars) were saved by
the experiment, through which 2,561 papers were sent.
This amounts to an average of 29,090 USD saved per
preprint per year in 2018 dollars.
https://apps.dtic.mil/dtic/tr/fulltext/u2/726650.pdf
@jessicapolka, @ASAPbio_, #ASAPbio

5. Feedback and
collaboration

6. https://www.facebook.com/groups/853552931365745/permalink/1349684805085886/
https://osf.io/sgpe9
/
Feedback can be found all around the web
@jessicapolka, @ASAPbio_, #ASAPbio

8. Preprints initiative collaborations
https://www.biorxiv.org/content/10.1101/833400v1.full

9. Author feedback is not just an anecdote
https://www.biorxiv.org/content/10.1101/833400v1.full
In a survey of bioRxiv users,
scientists were asked the
mechanisms by which they
have received feedback on
papers posted on bioRxiv.
@jessicapolka, @ASAPbio_, #ASAPbio

10. Authors want feedback
https://www.biorxiv.org/content/10.1101/833400v1.full
Authors were asked how they
would like to receive feedback
on papers (see main text and
Supplementary Data).
BUT, public feedback is
useful to readers and
journal editors, too

11. Public feedback channels

13. Making feedback visible
On bioRxiv On EuropePMC
● eLife
● The EMBO Press
journals
● Peerage of Science
● Review Commons
https://www.cshl.edu/transpare
nt-review-in-preprints/

14. Can we make it easier for readers
(and journal editors) to find all
feedback?
How can we identify and curate
reliable feedback?

15. Preprints and journals

16. On average - authors post well before publication
Figure 3. Time between
posting a preprint and
publication of a peer-
reviewed article. Data taken
from bioRxiv and PeerJ
Preprints, using metadata
supplied to Crossref. Note
that a small number of
preprints appear to have
been posted after a peer-
reviewed paper has been
published, illustrating that
reusing data in different
contexts can provide
opportunities for improved
quality control. Data analysis
by Michael Parkin.
http://blog.europepmc.org/2018/07/preprints.html
@jessicapolka, @ASAPbio_, #ASAPbio

17. Posting at submission is a feature, not a bug
https://www.biorxiv.org/co
ntent/10.1101/833400v1.fu
ll

18. Publisher-driven preprint submission can introduce
authors to preprint, but…
To get benefits of pre-submission posting (journal
marketplace, more collaboration) we need to
increase author-driven posting

19. Preprints and OA
Peer review changes manuscripts; most preprints do not
obviate need for OA VORs. Let’s not reinforce a two-tier
system by pretending they do

20. Versioning needs to be
revisited
Making it easier and more acceptable to amend and
correct even published articles would have profound,
positive cultural consequences

21. Trust: clarity and
transparency

22. Sources of
trust in
preprints
OSF Survey - Signals of
Trust in Preprints
N = 3755 survey
respondents from March –
June 2019
https://osf.io/6kz2j/

23. Preprint servers have diverse moderation strategies,
and these practices should be clear

24. @ASAPbio_ | #ASAPbio
Making preprint status more accurate and useful

25. @ASAPbio_ | #ASAPbio
Forthcoming: preprint server directory
ASAPbio and Jaime Kirkham
(University of Manchester) are
conducting a research project to
survey current scholarly
publishing practices by preprint
servers
Including:
● Screening
● COI
● Plagiarism
● Archiving
● Technology
● Metadata
For updates:
asapbio.org/newsletter

26. We don’t need a common
definition of a preprint, we
need a vocabulary for the
full suite of peer review
and screening checks that
can be applied to any
version of an article in the
publishing continuum
Proposed taxonomy for
signalling peer review types &
other metadata
prtstandards.org
● Disciplines will need/want
different checks at different times
● Different actors might contribute
to the review (not just one
publisher)
● Not all research needs the same
level of review.

27. Thank you
ASAPbio
Naomi Penfold
Victoria Yan
ASAPbio board
Ron Vale
Cynthia Wolberger
James Fraser
Prachee Avasthi
Phil Bourne
Daniel Colón-Ramos
Tony Hyman
Heather Joseph
Jennifer Lin
Kristen Ratan
Harold Varmus
Dick Wilder
@ASAPbio_ | @jessicapolka | jessica.polka@asapbio.org
Transpose team
Samantha Hindle
Jennifer Lin
Gary McDowell
Naomi Penfold
Tony Ross-Hellauer
MIT Knowledge Futures Group &
CREOS
Amy Brand
Micah Altman
Philip Cohen
These slides: tinyurl.com/niso-polka