Interventions in scholarly communication: Design lessons from public health

Authors : Micah Altman, Philip N. Cohen, Jessica Polka

Many argue that swift and fundamental interventions in the system of scholarly communication are needed. However, there are substantial disagreements over the short- and long-term benefits of most proposed approaches to changing the practice of science communication, and the lack of systematic, empirically based research in this area makes these controversies difficult to resolve. We argue that experience within public health can be usefully applied to scholarly communication.

Starting with the history of DDT (Dichlorodiphenyltrichloroethane) application, we illustrate four ways complex human systems threaten reliable predictions and blunt ad-hoc interventions. We then show how these apply to interventions in scholarly publication – open access based on the article processing charge (APC), and preprints – to yield surprising results. Finally, we offer approaches to help guide the design of future interventions: identifying measures and outcomes, developing infrastructure, incorporating assessment, and contributing to theories of systemic change.

URL : Interventions in scholarly communication: Design lessons from public health

DOI : https://doi.org/10.5210/fm.v28i8.12941

Preprints: Their Evolving Role in Science Communication

Authors : Iratxe Puebla, Jessica Polka, Oya Rieger

The use of preprints for the dissemination of research in some life sciences branches has increased substantially over the last few years. In this document, we discuss preprint publishing and use in the life sciences, from initial experiments back in the 1960s to the current landscape.

We explore the perspectives, advantages and perceived concerns that different stakeholders associate with preprints, and where preprints stand in the context of research assessment frameworks.

We also discuss the role of preprints in the publishing ecosystem and within open science more broadly, before outlining some remaining open questions and considerations for the future evolution of preprints.

URL : Preprints: Their Evolving Role in Science Communication

DOI : https://doi.org/10.31222/osf.io/ezfsk

Building trust in preprints: recommendations for servers and other stakeholders

Authors : Jeffrey Beck, Christine Ferguson, Kathryn Funk, Brooks Hanson, Melissa Harrison, Michele Ide-Smith, Rachael Lammey, Maria Levchenko, Alex Mendonça, Michael Parkin, Naomi Penfold, Nicole Pfeiffer, Jessica Polka, Iratxe Puebla, Oya Y Rieger, Martyn Rittman, Richard Sever, Sowmya Swaminathan

On January 20 and 21, 2020, ASAPbio, in collaboration with EMBL-EBI and Ithaka S+R, convened over 30 representatives from academia, preprint servers, publishers, funders, and standards, indexing and metadata infrastructure organisations at EMBL-EBI (Hinxton, UK) to develop a series of recommendations for best practices for posting and linking of preprints in the life sciences and ideally the broader research community.

We hope that these recommendations offer guidance for new preprint platforms and projects looking to enact best practices and ultimately serve to improve the experience of using preprints for all.

URL : Building trust in preprints: recommendations for servers and other stakeholders

DOI : https://doi.org/10.31219/osf.io/8dn4w

Peer review and preprint policies are unclear at most major journals

Authors : Thomas Klebel, Stefan Reichmann, Jessica Polka, Gary McDowell, Naomi Penfold, Samantha Hindle, Tony Ross-Hellauer

Clear and findable publishing policies are important for authors to choose appropriate journals for publication. We investigated the clarity of policies of 171 major academic journals across disciplines regarding peer review and preprinting.

31.6% of journals surveyed do not provide information on the type of peer review they use. Information on whether preprints can be posted or not is unclear in 39.2% of journals. 58.5% of journals offer no clear information on whether reviewer identities are revealed to authors.

Around 75% of journals have no clear policy on coreviewing, citation of preprints, and publication of reviewer identities. Information regarding practices of Open Peer Review is even more scarce, with <20% of journals providing clear information.

Having found a lack of clear information, we conclude by examining the implications this has for researchers (especially early career) and the spread of open research practices.

URL : Peer review and preprint policies are unclear at most major journals

DOI : https://doi.org/10.1101/2020.01.24.918995