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Ensuring that public feedback on preprints is focused, appropriate, specific and transparent (or FAST) will help to develop a thriving culture for reviewing and commenting on preprints.

Presentation from the NISO Plus 2022 conference

Preprints catalyze rapid and open communication of research. A frequent criticism of preprints, however, is their lack of peer review. In recent years, myriad new initiatives have enabled review of preprinted research to be coordinated, collected, and displayed alongside preprints. This provides evaluation and context for readers, as well as feedback for the authors. The processes behind preprint review are diverse and may differ from journal peer review, which can be a challenge for readers seeking to compare and interpret the reviews. To address this, the ASAPbio organized a working group that set out to define key features of preprint review processes. Here, we describe Preprint Review Features (PReF) as descriptors and provide an implementation guide. PReF captures the key elements of preprint review processes using 8 standard key-value pairs. PReF can serve within the descriptions of individual preprint review processes, and act as search filters on indexing services. Widespread adoption of PReF will promote understanding and categorization of preprint review and improve its discoverability.

There has been strong interest in preprint commenting and review activities in recent years. Public preprint feedback can bring benefits to authors, readers and others in scholarly communication, however, the level of public commenting on preprints is still low. This is likely due to cultural barriers, such as fear by authors that criticisms on their paper will bias readers, editors and evaluators, and concerns by commenters that posting a public critique on a preprint by a more senior colleague may lead to retribution. In order to help address these cultural barriers and foster positive and constructive participation in public preprint feedback, we have developed a set of 14 principles for creating, responding to, and interpreting preprint feedback. The principles are clustered around four broad themes: Focused, Appropriate, Specific, Transparent (FAST). We describe each of the FAST principles and designate which actors (authors, reviewers and the community) each of the principles applies to. We discuss the possible implementation of the FAST principles by different stakeholders in science communication, and explore what opportunities and challenges lie ahead in the path towards a thriving preprint feedback ecosystem.