Étiquette : Ludo Waltman

Publié le

To preprint or not to preprint: A global researcher survey

Authors : Rong Ni, Ludo Waltman

Open science is receiving widespread attention globally, and preprinting offers an important way to implement open science practices in scholarly publishing. To develop a systematic understanding of researchers’ adoption of and attitudes toward preprinting, we conducted a survey of authors of research papers published in 2021 and early 2022. Our survey results show that the United States and Europe led the way in the adoption of preprinting.

The United States and European respondents reported a higher familiarity with and a stronger commitment to preprinting than their colleagues elsewhere in the world. The adoption of preprinting is much stronger in physics and astronomy as well as mathematics and computer science than in other research areas. Respondents identified free accessibility of preprints and acceleration of research communication as the most important benefits of preprinting.

Low reliability and credibility of preprints, sharing results before peer review and premature media coverage are the most significant concerns about preprinting, emphasized in particular by respondents in the life and health sciences. According to respondents, the most crucial strategies to encourage preprinting are integrating preprinting into journal submission workflows and providing recognition for posting preprints.

URL : To preprint or not to preprint: A global researcher survey

DOI : https://doi.org/10.1002/asi.24880

Publié le

The experiences of COVID-19 preprint authors: a survey of researchers about publishing and receiving feedback on their work during the pandemic

Authors : Narmin Rzayeva, Susana Oliveira Henriques, Stephen Pinfield, Ludo Waltman

The COVID-19 pandemic caused a rise in preprinting, triggered by the need for open and rapid dissemination of research outputs. We surveyed authors of COVID-19 preprints to learn about their experiences with preprinting their work and also with publishing their work in a peer-reviewed journal.

Our research had the following objectives: 1. to learn about authors’ experiences with preprinting, their motivations, and future intentions; 2. to consider preprints in terms of their effectiveness in enabling authors to receive feedback on their work; 3. to compare the impact of feedback on preprints with the impact of comments of editors and reviewers on papers submitted to journals. In our survey, 78% of the new adopters of preprinting reported the intention to also preprint their future work.

The boost in preprinting may therefore have a structural effect that will last after the pandemic, although future developments will also depend on other factors, including the broader growth in the adoption of open science practices. A total of 53% of the respondents reported that they had received feedback on their preprints. However, more than half of the feedback was received through “closed” channels–privately to the authors.

This means that preprinting was a useful way to receive feedback on research, but the value of feedback could be increased further by facilitating and promoting “open” channels for preprint feedback. Almost a quarter of the feedback received by respondents consisted of detailed comments, showing the potential of preprint feedback to provide valuable comments on research.

Respondents also reported that, compared to preprint feedback, journal peer review was more likely to lead to major changes to their work, suggesting that journal peer review provides significant added value compared to feedback received on preprints.

URL : The experiences of COVID-19 preprint authors: a survey of researchers about publishing and receiving feedback on their work during the pandemic

DOI : https://doi.org/10.7717/peerj.15864

Publié le

To Preprint or Not to Preprint: Experience and Attitudes of Researchers Worldwide

Authors : Rong Ni, Ludo Waltman

The pandemic has underlined the significance of open science and spurred further growth of preprinting. Nevertheless, preprinting has been adopted at varying rates across different countries/regions.

To investigate researchers’ experience with and attitudes toward preprinting, we conducted a survey of authors of research papers published in 2021 or 2022. We find that respondents in the US and Europe had a higher level of familiarity with and adoption of preprinting than those in China and the rest of the world. Respondents in China were most worried about the lack of recognition for preprinting and the risk of getting scooped.

US respondents were very concerned about premature media coverage of preprints, the reliability and credibility of preprints, and public sharing of information before peer review. Respondents identified integration of preprinting in journal submission processes as the most important way to promote preprinting.

DOI : https://doi.org/10.55835/6442f782b2b5580ba561406b

Publié le

Attitudes, behaviours and experiences of authors of COVID-19 preprints

Authors : Narmin Rzayeva, Susana Oliveira Henriques, Stephen Pinfield, Ludo Waltman

The COVID-19 pandemic caused a rise in preprinting, apparently triggered by the need for open and rapid dissemination of research outputs. We surveyed authors of COVID-19 preprints to learn about their experience of preprinting as well as publishing in a peer-reviewed journal.

A key aim was to consider preprints in terms of their effectiveness for authors to receive feedback on their work. We also aimed to compare the impact of feedback on preprints with the impact of comments of editors and reviewers on papers submitted to journals. We observed a high rate of new adopters of preprinting who reported positive intentions regarding preprinting their future work.

This allows us to posit that the boost in preprinting may have a structural effect that will last after the pandemic. We also saw a high rate of feedback on preprints but mainly through “closed” channels – directly to the authors.

This means that preprinting was a useful way to receive feedback on research, but the value of feedback could be increased further by facilitating and promoting “open” channels for preprint feedback. At the same time, almost a quarter of the preprints that received feedback received comments resembling journal peer review.

This shows the potential of preprint feedback to provide valuable detailed comments on research. However, journal peer review resulted in a higher rate of major changes in the papers surveyed, suggesting that the journal peer review process has significant added value compared to preprint feedback.

URL : Attitudes, behaviours and experiences of authors of COVID-19 preprints

DOI : https://doi.org/10.31235/osf.io/d96yj

Publié le

How to improve scientific peer review: Four schools of thought

Authors : Ludo Waltman, Wolfgang Kaltenbrunner, Stephen Pinfield, Helen Buckley Woods

Peer review plays an essential role as one of the cornerstones of the scholarly publishing system. There are many initiatives that aim to improve the way in which peer review is organized, resulting in a highly complex landscape of innovation in peer review.

Different initiatives are based on different views on the most urgent challenges faced by the peer review system, leading to a diversity of perspectives on how the system can be improved.

To provide a more systematic understanding of the landscape of innovation in peer review, we suggest that the landscape is shaped by four schools of thought: The Quality & Reproducibility school, the Democracy & Transparency school, the Equity & Inclusion school, and the Efficiency & Incentives school.

Each school has a different view on the key problems of the peer review system and the innovations necessary to address these problems. The schools partly complement each other, but we argue that there are also important tensions between the schools.

We hope that the four schools of thought offer a useful framework to facilitate conversations about the future development of the peer review system.

URL : How to improve scientific peer review: Four schools of thought

DOI : https://doi.org/10.31235/osf.io/v8ghj

Publié le

Innovations in peer review in scholarly publishing: a meta-summary

Authors : Helen Buckley Woods, Johanna Brumberg, Wolfgang Kaltenbrunner, Stephen Pinfield, Ludo Waltman

Background

There are currently numerous innovations in peer review and quality assurance in scholarly publishing. The Research on Research Institute conducted a programme of co-produced projects investigating these innovations.

This literature review was part of one such project ‘Experiments in peer review’ (Kaltenbrunner et al, 2022), which created an inventory and framework of peer review innovations. The aim of this literature review was to aid the development of the inventory by identifying innovations in peer review reported in the scholarly literature and by providing a summary of the different approaches.

Methods

This meta-summary is based on data identified from Web of Science and Scopus limited from 2010 to 2021. A total of 247 papers were screened, with 6 review articles chosen for the focus of the literature review. Items were selected that described approaches to innovating peer review or illustrated examples.

Results

The summary of innovations are drawn from 6 review articles: Bruce et al (2016); Tennant et al (2017); Burley (2017); Horbach and Halffman (2018); Tennant (2018); Barroga (2020). The innovations are divided into three high-level categories: approaches to peer review, reviewer focussed initiatives and technology to support peer review with sub-categories of results presented in tabular form and summarised. A summary of all innovations found is also presented.

Conclusions

From a simple synthesis of the review authors’ conclusions, three key messages are presented: observations on current practice; authors’ views on the implications of innovations in peer review; and calls for action in peer review research and practice.

URL : https://osf.io/preprints/socarxiv/qaksd/

Publié le

Gender differences in scientific careers: A large-scale bibliometric analysis

Authors : Hanjo Boekhout, Inge van der Weijden, Ludo Waltman

We present a large-scale bibliometric analysis of gender differences in scientific careers, covering all scientific disciplines and a large number of countries worldwide. We take a longitudinal perspective in which we trace the publication careers of almost six million male and female researchers in the period 1996-2018.

Our analysis reveals an increasing trend in the percentage of women starting a career as publishing researcher, from 33% in 2000 to about 40% in recent years. Looking at cohorts of male and female researchers that started their publication career in the same year, we find that women seem to be somewhat less likely to continue their career as publishing researcher than men, but the difference is small.

We also observe that men produce on average between 15% and 20% more publications than women. Moreover, in biomedical disciplines, men are about 25% more likely than women to be last author of a publication, suggesting that men tend to have more senior roles than women.

Compared with cross-sectional studies, our longitudinal analysis has the advantage of providing a more in-depth understanding of gender imbalances among authors of scientific publications.

URL : https://arxiv.org/abs/2106.12624