Comments on: The Benefits of a “Central Service” for Biology Preprints https://asapbio.org/benefits-of-a-cs/ Fri, 04 Apr 2025 22:28:43 +0000 hourly 1 https://wordpress.org/?v=6.9 By: Adam Gordon https://asapbio.org/benefits-of-a-cs/#comment-42 Fri, 04 Apr 2025 22:28:43 +0000 http://pl-asapbio.local/benefits-of-a-cs/#comment-42 What specific concerns in this article are not already addressed by bioarxiv, which is already being used by researchers around the globe?

]]> By: Stephen Floor https://asapbio.org/benefits-of-a-cs/#comment-43 Fri, 04 Apr 2025 22:28:43 +0000 http://pl-asapbio.local/benefits-of-a-cs/#comment-43 Some thoughts:

– a diversity of preprint servers exist and it may be unclear to funders which are acceptable in funding applications.

– bioRxiv is fantastic but defines preprints according to a classical definition of a “manuscript”. The governance body here could define other research products as acceptable preprints for funding apps.

– there’s a paragraph above about the limitations of manuscript-like preprints for machine readability, which this seeks to address.

– this service would smoothen a community shift towards a new preprint server or format, should it occur. Recall bioRxiv didn’t exist five years ago.

bioRxiv is great, but it’s not the end-all-be-all of preprints/interim research products in the life sciences. Rather than the final product, I hope it’s the beginning of other modes of accelerated scientific communication.

]]> By: Mike Taylor https://asapbio.org/benefits-of-a-cs/#comment-44 Fri, 04 Apr 2025 22:28:43 +0000 http://pl-asapbio.local/benefits-of-a-cs/#comment-44 Another important question about services like this is: who owns it? The governance model for Central Services touched on above is a good solution to that problem. From my brief exploration, I’ve not been able to determine who owns BiorXiv. I know it’s operated by Cold Spring Harbour, but that is not the same thing. A practical question would be what prevents it from being swallowed up by Elsevier, as SSRN was.

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