{"id":3550,"date":"2019-07-29T00:00:00","date_gmt":"2019-07-29T00:00:00","guid":{"rendered":"http:\/\/pl-asapbio.local\/scl-project-first-update\/"},"modified":"2025-03-28T21:37:36","modified_gmt":"2025-03-28T21:37:36","slug":"scl-project-first-update","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/asapbio.org\/scl-project-first-update\/","title":{"rendered":"To preprint or not to preprint? Research for a more transparent publishing system"},"content":{"rendered":"

This blogpost is cross-posted from the <\/em>ScholCommLab blog<\/em><\/a> (Alice Feerackers, July 29 2019) and provides an update on a current research project by two visiting scholars supported by ASAPbio.<\/em><\/p>\n

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\u201cAcademic life\u201d by uonottingham is licensed under CC BY-NC-SA 2.0<\/a><\/em><\/figcaption><\/figure>\n

\u201cFor researchers, there is immense pressure to publish in journals that are highly competitive,\u201d says Naomi Penfold, associate director of the scientist-driven nonprofit ASAPbio<\/a>. \u201c[This, in turn,] means that the process of sharing what you have found, evaluating whether claims are valid or not, and gaining recognition and visibility is all wrapped up in the long, arduous, and mostly opaque process of publishing at these few journals.\u201d<\/p>\n

Improving this \u201clong, arduous\u201d process is core to ASAPbio\u2019s mission of advancing \u201cinnovation and transparency in life sciences communication.\u201d It\u2019s also the focus of a new research collaboration between ASAPbio and the ScholCommLab<\/a> exploring the status of preprint adoption and impact in different research communities.<\/p>\n

In this post, we\u2019re shining a spotlight on the Preprints Uptake and Use research team, and offering a glimpse of their findings so far.<\/p>\n

Why study preprints?  <\/strong><\/h2>\n

Academic peer review is often seen as a cornerstone of science, and remains one of the most trusted ways of assessing research quality<\/a>. But despite its status within academia, there\u2019s little evidence of its effectiveness<\/a>. (In fact, some research suggests peer review may actually prevent high quality science<\/a> from becoming published).<\/p>\n

Whether or not this is the case is still unclear, but scholars are exploring new avenues for disseminating their work. Preprinting<\/em> \u2014 openly publishing research findings before submitting them for peer review \u2014 is one such avenue. By allowing researchers to circumvent the lengthy peer review process, preprints have the potential to catalyze research collaboration and innovation \u2014 months before the final journal article is published.<\/p>\n

\u201cI see preprints as an online-first tool that allows anyone to discuss the latest findings while they\u2019re still fresh\u201d\u2014Naomi Penfold<\/em><\/h3>\n

\u201cI see preprints as an online-first tool that allows anyone to discuss the latest findings while they\u2019re still fresh,\u201d says Naomi. \u201cPreprints could help increase the likelihood and speed that science is seen, understood, tested, and built upon, which would be beneficial for individual researchers and society at large.\u201d<\/p>\n

But despite these potential benefits and substantial growth in preprinting in the past few years, little is known about the use of preprints in individual academic communities. While we can track preprint numbers in major subject categories and on individual servers, we currently do not have data to understand who is preprinting and whether there are nuances between individual research communities: Which researchers preprint more than others in their network? In which research fields is preprinting growing in popularity, and in which fields is adoption disproportionately low? These are just some of the questions that the Preprints Uptake and Use research team is exploring this summer\u2014questions that could help inform efforts to raise awareness of preprinting and measure their impact on science.<\/p>\n

Meet the Preprints Team: Mario Mali\u010dki and Janina Sarol <\/strong><\/h2>\n
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Preprints visiting scholars Mario Mali\u010dki and Janina Sarol<\/figcaption><\/figure>\n

The ScholCommLab preprints team is comprised of two visiting scholars: Mario Mali\u010dki<\/a> and Janina Sarol<\/a>. A recent postdoc at AMC and ASUS Amsterdam, Mario has been researching the role of journals in fostering responsible research conduct since 2017. Janina is a PhD student in Informatics at the University of Illinois at Urbana-Champaign with a background in Computer Science and Information Management. Together, they bring a unique mix of skills and interests to the research team.<\/p>\n

\u201cI used to work at the university library back in Illinois,\u201d Janina says, when asked how she first became interested in preprints. \u201cI was transforming all of their collections into linked data, and I was surprised by how much dirty data there was.\u201d There were so many authors and contributors, so many different articles and journals. Determining who had published what and where, she explains, turned out to be no small feat.<\/p>\n

While others may have been frustrated by the messiness of bibliometric data, Janina was fascinated by it. \u201cThat\u2019s what interested me,\u201d she says, \u201ctrying to clean the data, so that we could do a better analysis.\u201d She smiles, \u201cBibliometrics is like a library. All of the books seem to be stacked in the right place. But, when you dig deeper, things are not always so neat. \u201c<\/p>\n

\u201cBibliometrics is like a library. All of the books seem to be stacked in the right place. But, when you dig deeper, things are not always so neat. \u201c \u2014 Janina Sarol<\/em><\/h3>\n

Like Janina, Mario\u2019s interest in scholarly publishing began when he discovered how flawed the system could be. It was 2011, and he had taken a step back from medical school to join the research department at the University of Split. He was working under the supervision of the editors of Croatian Medical Journal<\/em>, the country\u2019s top medical publication.<\/p>\n

\u201cThey experienced a lot of people trying to bribe them to get into the journal,\u201d he explains. \u201cIn most Croatian universities at the time, you needed at least one publication in a journal with an impact factor higher than 1 to get your PhD,\u201d he continues. \u201cIn a country as small as ours, there was only one such journal\u2014and that was theirs.\u201d<\/p>\n

Witnessing these informal pressures firsthand sparked a deep interest in how the process of authorship works\u2014and how it could be improved. He dove into the world of meta-research, balancing his teaching responsibilities with this new passion. \u201cI completely fell in love with meta-research,\u201d he says, \u201cI realized that I would never go back to the hospital.\u201d<\/p>\n

\u201cI completely fell in love with meta-research, and realized that I would never go back to the hospital.\u201d \u2014 Mario Mali\u010dki  <\/em><\/h3>\n

A messy today and a bright tomorrow<\/strong><\/h2>\n

For the last month, Mario and Janina have been working under the supervision of ScholCommLab co-director Juan Pablo Alperin<\/a> to collect, consolidate, and analyze data from more than 60 different preprint servers. Eventually, they hope to use the data to answer such questions as:<\/p>\n