Étiquette : open access

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Is preprint the future of science? A thirty year journey of online preprint services

Authors : Boya Xie, Zhihong Shen, Kuansan Wang

Preprint is a version of a scientific paper that is publicly distributed preceding formal peer review. Since the launch of arXiv in 1991, preprints have been increasingly distributed over the Internet as opposed to paper copies.

It allows open online access to disseminate the original research within a few days, often at a very low operating cost. This work overviews how preprint has been evolving and impacting the research community over the past thirty years alongside the growth of the Web.

In this work, we first report that the number of preprints has exponentially increased 63 times in 30 years, although it only accounts for 4% of research articles. Second, we quantify the benefits that preprints bring to authors: preprints reach an audience 14 months earlier on average and associate with five times more citations compared with a non-preprint counterpart. Last, to address the quality concern of preprints, we discover that 41% of preprints are ultimately published at a peer-reviewed destination, and the published venues are as influential as papers without a preprint version.

Additionally, we discuss the unprecedented role of preprints in communicating the latest research data during recent public health emergencies. In conclusion, we provide quantitative evidence to unveil the positive impact of preprints on individual researchers and the community.

Preprints make scholarly communication more efficient by disseminating scientific discoveries more rapidly and widely with the aid of Web technologies. The measurements we present in this study can help researchers and policymakers make informed decisions about how to effectively use and responsibly embrace a preprint culture.

URL : https://arxiv.org/abs/2102.09066

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Linguistic Analysis of the bioRxiv Preprint Landscape

Authors : David N. Nicholson, Vincent Rubinetti, Dongbo Hu, Marvin Thielk, Lawrence E. Hunter, Casey S. Greene

Preprints allow researchers to make their findings available to the scientific community before they have undergone peer review. Studies on preprints within bioRxiv have been largely focused on article metadata and how often these preprints are downloaded, cited, published, and discussed online.

A missing element that has yet to be examined is the language contained within the bioRxiv preprint repository. We sought to compare and contrast linguistic features within bioRxiv preprints to published biomedical text as a whole as this is an excellent opportunity to examine how peer review changes these documents.

The most prevalent features that changed appear to be associated with typesetting and mentions of supplementary sections or additional files. In addition to text comparison, we created document embeddings derived from a preprint-trained word2vec model.

We found that these embeddings are able to parse out different scientific approaches and concepts, link unannotated preprint-peer reviewed article pairs, and identify journals that publish linguistically similar papers to a given preprint.

We also used these embeddings to examine factors associated with the time elapsed between the posting of a first preprint and the appearance of a peer reviewed publication. We found that preprints with more versions posted and more textual changes took longer to publish.

Lastly, we constructed a web application (https://greenelab.github.io/preprint-similarity-search/) that allows users to identify which journals and articles that are most linguistically similar to a bioRxiv or medRxiv preprint as well as observe where the preprint would be positioned within a published article landscape.

DOI : https://doi.org/10.1101/2021.03.04.433874

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Communicating Scientific Uncertainty in an Age of COVID-19: An Investigation into the Use of Preprints by Digital Media Outlets

Authors : Alice Fleerackers, Michelle Riedlinger, Laura Moorhead, Rukhsana Ahmed, Juan Pablo Alperin

In this article, we investigate the surge in use of COVID-19-related preprints by media outlets. Journalists are a main source of reliable public health information during crises and, until recently, journalists have been reluctant to cover preprints because of the associated scientific uncertainty.

Yet, uploads of COVID-19 preprints and their uptake by online media have outstripped that of preprints about any other topic. Using an innovative approach combining altmetrics methods with content analysis, we identified a diversity of outlets covering COVID-19-related preprints during the early months of the pandemic, including specialist medical news outlets, traditional news media outlets, and aggregators.

We found a ubiquity of hyperlinks as citations and a multiplicity of framing devices for highlighting the scientific uncertainty associated with COVID-19 preprints. These devices were rarely used consistently (e.g., mentioning that the study was a preprint, unreviewed, preliminary, and/or in need of verification).

About half of the stories we analyzed contained framing devices emphasizing uncertainty. Outlets in our sample were much less likely to identify the research they mentioned as preprint research, compared to identifying it as simply “research.” This work has significant implications for public health communication within the changing media landscape.

While current best practices in public health risk communication promote identifying and promoting trustworthy sources of information, the uptake of preprint research by online media presents new challenges.

At the same time, it provides new opportunities for fostering greater awareness of the scientific uncertainty associated with health research findings.

DOI : https://doi.org/10.1080/10410236.2020.1864892

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Bibliodiversity at the Centre: Decolonizing Open Access

Author : Monica Berger

The promise of open access for the global South has not been fully met. Publishing is dominated by Northern publishers, which disadvantages Southern authors through platform capitalism and open access models requiring article processing charges to publish.

This article argues that through the employment of bibliodiversity — a sustainable, anticolonial ethos and practice developed in Latin America — the South can reclaim and decolonize open access and nurture scholarly communities.

Self‐determination and locality are at the core of bibliodiversity which rejects the domination of international, English‐language journal publishing. As articulated by the Jussieu Call, wide‐ranging, scholarly‐community‐based, non‐profit and sustainable models for open access are integral to bibliodiversity, as is reform of research evaluation systems.

Predatory publishing exploits open access and perpetuates the marginalization of Southern scholars. Predatory journals are often also conflated with legitimate Southern journals. The article concludes with a discussion of Southern open access initiatives, highlighting large‐scale infrastructure in Latin America and library‐based publishing in Africa, which express the true spirit of open access as a commons for knowledge as a public good.

DOI : https://doi.org/10.1111/dech.12634

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PLAN S and other progress for Open Access to knowledge

Authors : Stefano Bianco, Laura Patrizii

The principle of Open Access (OA) is about the breaking of any paywall to the knowledge coming from research funded by public monies. After twenty years of statements not much has changed and the market of scientific journals is still in the hands of oligopolistic companies.

Plan S is a disruptive initiative created by research funders in Europe and US which aims to foster the transition to Open Access by acting against hybrid journals and citation index.

The Italian Institute for Nuclear Physics (INFN) has signed Plan S and, in close relationship with the Universities, the Conference of Rectors (CRUI), and the National Research Council (CNR), is outreaching the academic communities to discuss strengths, weaknesses, opportunities and threats. In this work both a description of Plan S and a brief status report of other initiatives are given.

URL : PLAN S and other progress for Open Access to knowledge

DOI : http://dx.doi.org/10.2423/i22394303v10Sp59

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Preprints in Chemistry: An Exploratory Analysis of Differences with Journal Articles

Author : Mario Pagliaro

The exploratory analysis of the differences between preprints and the corresponding peer reviewed journal articles for ten studies first published on ChemRxiv and on Preprints, though statistically non-significant, suggests outcomes of relevance for chemistry researchers and educators.

The full transition to open science requires new education of doctoral students and young researchers on scholarly communication in the digital age.

The preliminary findings of this study will contribute to inform the curriculum of the aforementioned new courses for young chemists, eventually promoting accelerated innovation in a science that, unique amid all basic sciences, originates a huge industry central to the wealth of nations.

URL : Preprints in Chemistry: An Exploratory Analysis of Differences with Journal Articles

DOI : https://doi.org/10.3390/publications9010005

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Opening up the Library: Transforming our Policies, Practices and Structures

Authors : Joanna Ball, Graham Stone, Sarah Thompson

Momentum is building in the transition to open access for monographs, with a number of funders developing policies and mandates in recent years.

The article argues that while libraries play an instrumental role in driving a transition to open science within their institutions this is not reflected in libraries’ approaches to collection development, which are still predicated on purchased content.

Libraries are keen to demonstrate that their purchased content is relevant to users, often promoting ‘expensive’ purchased collections over open content. Rather than relegating open to a less-visible second place, the article calls for libraries to acquire and promote open content alongside, and where appropriate with higher priority, than paid-for content.

In order to facilitate a transition to open access for monographs, cultural change and leadership is required within libraries to reimagine themselves around open content as the norm, with policies, practices and structures that communicate, enable and promote this shift. The article calls for a collaborative international approach.

URL : Opening up the Library: Transforming our Policies, Practices and Structures

Original location : https://www.liberquarterly.eu/article/10.18352/lq.10360/