COPE Discussion Document: Preprints

Abstract

Background/contextA preprint is a scholarly manuscript posted by the author(s) in an openly accessible platform, usually before or in parallel with the peer review process.While the sharing of manuscripts via preprint platforms has been common in some disciplines (such as physics and mathematics) for many years, uptake in other disciplines traditionally had been low, possibly influenced by differences in research culture and strong opposition by some journal publishers [1].The landscape has evolved rapidly in other fields in recent years, however, thanks to the launch of additional, discipline-specific preprint platforms and increased support by funders and initiatives such as ASAPBio [2, 3]. Why use preprints?Preprint servers provide researchers with a platform to disseminate their work quickly and broadly, in a shorter timeframe than that needed at a peer-reviewed journal.Researchers can establish precedence and may be able to obtain feedback before (or, sometimes, in parallel with) peer review at a journal and from a wider audience than the two or three reviewers traditionally involved in reviewing manuscripts.The availability of preprints can also facilitate interactions between researchers working on similar areas or projects, and may help foster collaboration between groups.Some funders allow inclusion of preprints in grant applications [4] and thus, posting work as a preprint can help authors to provide evidence of research productivity.Preprint platforms do not currently incur submission fees and, thus, provide a free service to both authors and readers.The long-term sustainability of this business model is an open question, although some feel that the operational costs can be offset via grants and partnerships with other parties [5].Some preprint platforms provide features where readers can publicly log comments, critiques and suggestions.Even if commenting features are not available, readers can contact the researchers directly.

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No public copy is stored for this record, so only the metadata is cited.

Stored only when both papers are in the corpus — 24 citations exist upstream.

Papers that cite the same references — the relational fallback while embeddings are still backfilling.