Analysis: discovery


Preprints: opportunity or challenge? Active engagement and collaboration are needed to deliver the promise of preprints, writes Andrea Chiarelli


The preprints landscape is evolving fast. After the first preprint servers were launched by physicists and economists in the early 1990s, the field remained dormant in most other disciplines until about 2013. From that point onwards, we have seen an unexpected surge in the number of preprint servers available for researchers to post, read and comment on articles in pre-refereed form. Knowledge Exchange (a group of national organisations from six European countries tasked with developing digital infrastructure and services to improve research and higher education) has been investigating preprints since 2018. An introductory report was followed by an extensive consultation with almost 40 international stakeholders from Europe and North America. In this context, we interviewed researchers and representatives of research performing organisations, research funders, preprint servers and service providers. This work fed into a preprint entitled ‘Preprints and Scholarly Communication: Adoption, Practices, Drivers and Barriers’ and will be developed into a full Knowledge Exchange report in the autumn. Before we delve further into the


discussion, let us highlight one of the biggest challenges we encountered when analysing the preprints landscape: definitions. We started our journey using a definition we felt most would share; that a preprint is a version of a research paper typically prior to peer review and publication in a journal. However, our research soon showed that disciplinary communities have different views on what a preprint is and the value it carries in practice. Throughout the course of our work,


we were reminded that the importance of disciplines goes beyond definitions. Accepted norms and behaviours in a community, from the research group to the international level, are what really make the difference when it comes to the uptake of preprints. Preprints are already broadly accepted


18 Research Information August/September 2019


and widespread in the physics and mathematics communities, as are working papers in economics. On the other hand, their role in biology, chemistry or psychology is rapidly developing, albeit from a low base. Meanwhile, in many fields of the humanities monographs and edited volumes are the dominant mode of scholarly discourse. Open access monographs are gaining ground, but our work suggests that a preprint culture has yet to emerge in these disciplines. Regardless of disciplinary differences,


the various stakeholders in the scholarly communication landscape seem to agree that the key benefit of preprint posting is that it enables easy and fast dissemination. Openness is also an important driver, as preprints are typically freely available online for anyone to access and read. Some argue that sharing


“Preprints are already broadly accepted and widespread in the physics and mathematics communities”


preprints online also allows authors to receive early feedback on their work: while this is true in principle, our research indicates that commenting via preprint servers is not common (and not always technically possible), at least for the time being.


On the other hand, a possible issue when it comes to preprint posting, is the lack of quality assurance. Preprints are typically posted by authors prior to peer review, which may lead to concerns when reusing them: some are worried that negligent scientists and/or reporters could publish and share incorrect or imprecise work. However, we found that people expect professional and ethical behaviours in higher education and science reporting: the concept of trust was mentioned several times during our


interviews, and this is implemented in practice, for example by clearly labelling preprints as such, using document headers. In addition, we note that there is a high risk of reputational damage for all involved when poor-quality work is shared broadly and advertised. Therefore, the extent to which the lack of peer-review and the sharing of incorrect results will materialise is likely to be limited. A practical concern for researchers


that requires further clarification is the so-called ‘Ingelfinger rule’. According to this principle, research already published in some form (in this case, as a preprint) would not be considered suitable for formal publication in a journal. As a result, some researchers are legitimately concerned that posting preprints will prevent them from publishing their work in their journal of choice. This might limit the uptake of preprint posting, even if, in reality, a growing range of journals (including from top publishers) have stated that the practice is acceptable to them. Infrastructures for posting preprints appear to be largely in place today. In our work, we have identified three main models that allow researchers to share their work in preprint form: (i) standalone preprint servers using proprietary technologies (e.g., bioRxiv, arXiv); (ii) standalone preprint servers using third- party technologies (e.g., ChemRxiv using Figshare and other servers using the Open Science Framework); and (iii) publishing workflows including the public release of articles prior to peer review (e.g., PeerJ, F1000Research).


The main question arising from the


technological solutions is whether preprint posting will further evolve as a researcher- or publisher-centric practice. The former approach is likely to


conform to open scholarship principles and would help prevent excessive market consolidation in scholarly publishing. It would, however, likely lead to partial coverage, as only a subset of researchers globally would engage with the practice. A publisher-centric approach would enable smoother and simpler workflows, and, potentially, could lead to a scenario where all articles submitted are also made


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