Preprint

In

Since 1991, preprints have increasingly been distributed electronically on the Internet, rather than as paper copies. This has given rise to massive preprint databases such as arXiv and HAL (open archive) etc. to institutional repositories. The sharing of preprints goes back to at least the 1960s, when the National Institutes of Health circulated biological preprints. After six years the use of these Information Exchange Groups was stopped, partially because journals stopped accepting submissions shared via these channels.^[1] In 2017, the Medical Research Council started supporting citations of preprints in grant and fellowship applications,^[2] and Wellcome Trust started accepting preprints in grant applications.^[3]

In February 2017, a coalition of scientists and biomedical funding bodies including the National Institutes of Health, the Medical Research Council and the Wellcome Trust launched a proposal for a central site for life-sciences preprints.

During the early months of the COVID-19 pandemic, the need for published research on the disease spurred a wave of research articles being released as preprints,^[12] bypassing the peer-review and publication process, which was proving too slow in the context of an active and novel pandemic. The release of COVID-related preprint articles, along with other COVID-related articles published by traditional journals, contributed to the largest ever single-year increase in scholarly articles.^[13]

Role

Academic practices

Most publishers allow work to be published to preprint servers before submission. A minority of publishers decide on a case-by-case basis or interpret the Ingelfinger Rule to disqualify from submission.^[15] Yet, many journals prohibit or discourage the use of preprints in the references as they are not considered as credible sources.

Some journal-independent review services (

While a preprint is an article that has not yet undergone peer review, a postprint is an article which has been peer reviewed in preparation for publication in a journal. Both the preprint and postprint may differ from the final published version of an article. Preprints and postprints together are referred to as e-prints or eprints.^[17]

The word reprint refers to hard copies of papers that have already been published; reprints can be produced by the journal publisher, but can also be generated from digital versions (for example, from an electronic database of peer-reviewed journals), or from eprints self-archived by their authors in their institutional repositories.

Tenure and promotion

In academia, preprints are not likely to be weighed heavily when a scholar is evaluated for tenure or promotion, unless the preprint becomes the basis for a peer-reviewed publication.^[18]

Some important results in mathematics have been published only on the preprint server arXiv.^[19][20] After nearly a century of effort by mathematicians, between 2002 and 2003 the mathematician Grigori Perelman published a series of preprint papers on the arXiv where he presented a proof of the Poincaré conjecture.^[21][22][23] Perelman was offered both the prestigious $1 million Millennium Prize and the Fields Medal for the mentioned work published exclusively on arXiv, but he declined both prizes.^[19]

Advantages of preprints

The advantages of preprints can be summarized as: prompt dissemination of outcomes, contributes to free flow of information, increase chances of early feedback and comments, increase number of citations, chances of academic collaborations, make authors enthusiastic, may reduce predatory publishing, increases transparency, may publish negative outcomes and controversies, may receive DOI, link to ORCID, plagiarism check, chance to receive grants and awards, promotion of young researchers, early credit, good place for hypothesis, and early detection of science misconduct.^[12]

Disadvantages of preprints

The disadvantages of preprints could be summarized as: lack of peer-review, absence of quality (in controversy), concerns about premature data, media coverage not properly presenting the inherent uncertainty of preprints,^[24] risk of double citation (by publishing a peer-reviewed article, the preprint may also be cited), lack of ethical and statistical guidelines, lack of respect for COPE or ICMJE guidelines, breach of intellectual property regulations in some countries, possible harm to health in certain cases, information overload, breach of Ingelfinger rule (a strategy conducted to discourage dissemination of research reports before they are published in the journal), rush to post low-quality research.^[12]

Types of preprint servers

See also:

PeerJ PrePrints) or were regional (e.g. INArxiv limited to Indonesia). Moreover, multiple writing platforms (e.g. Authorea) developed separate preprint servers as a part of their service. For more complete list (over 60 preprints servers) see: List of preprint repositories

.

See also

• Electronic article
• List of preprint repositories
• List of academic journals by preprint policy
• Offprint
• Prepress
• ScientificCommons

References

1. PMID 29145518
   .
2. ^ "The MRC supports preprints". www.mrc.ac.uk. Medical Research Council. 2017-01-03. Retrieved 2018-09-06.
3. ^ "We now accept preprints in grant applications". wellcome.ac.uk. Wellcome. 10 January 2017. Retrieved 2017-01-10.
4. S2CID 4466963
   .
5. ^ "Principles for establishing a Central Service for Preprints: a statement from a consortium of funders | ASAPbio". asapbio.org. 13 February 2017. Retrieved 2017-02-13.
6. ^ "ASAPbio newsletter vol 7 – Funders sign onto principles for preprint development, RFA released, scientific society town hall | ASAPbio". asapbio.org. 14 February 2017. Retrieved 2017-02-14.
7. ^ "SciELO Preprints on the way". SciELO in Perspective. 2017-02-22. Retrieved 2017-02-22.
8. ^ "NOT-OD-17-050: Reporting Preprints and Other Interim Research Products". grants.nih.gov. Retrieved 2017-03-25.
9. ^ "NIH enables investigators to include draft preprints in grant proposals". Science | AAAS. 2017-03-24. Retrieved 2017-03-27.
10. ^ "Public Goods Infrastructure for Preprints and Innovation in Scholarly Communication". cos.io. Retrieved 2017-04-19.
11. PMC 6466485
    .
12. ^
    PMID 37641621
    .
13. doi:10.1126/science.acx9058
    .
14. ^ "Breaking Down Pros and Cons of Preprints in Biomedicine". Absolutely Maybe. 2016-05-01. Retrieved 2018-01-12.
15. ISSN 0013-0613
    . Retrieved 2016-03-23.
16. ^ "Comparing journal-independent review services". asapbio.org. ASAPbio. 24 July 2020. Retrieved 2021-01-22.
17. ^ "Self-archiving FAQ". EPrints.
18. PMID 26887471
    .
19. ^ ^{a b} Kaufman, Marc (July 2, 2010), "Russian mathematician wins $1 million prize, but he appears to be happy with $0", Washington Post
20. ^ Nadejda Lobastova and Michael Hirst, "Maths genius living in poverty", Sydney Morning Herald, August 21, 2006
21. arXiv:math.DG/0211159
    .
22. arXiv:math.DG/0303109
    .
23. arXiv:math.DG/0307245
    .
24. PMID 34090351
    .

External links

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• Eysenbach G. "The impact of preprint servers and electronic publishing on biomedical research". Curr Opin Immunol. 2000 Oct;12(5):499–503
• Eysenbach G. "Challenges and changing roles for medical journals in the cyberspace age: Electronic pre-prints and e-papers". J Med Internet Res 1999;1(2):e9
• Electronic Preprints and Postprints, in Encyclopedia of Library and Information Science. Marcel Dekker.
• Inefuku, Harrison W. "Pre-Print, Post-Print or Offprint? A Guide to publication versions, permissions and the digital repository." Ames, IA: Digital Repository @ Iowa State University, 14 January 2013.
• Journal policies on preprints from Nature Precedings forum.
• Preprint, Postprint as defined by Crossref.
• Preprint FAQ by ASAPbio.