I recently reached out to some of the researchers in the Pulse community, to find out what the prevailing attitudes and practices are in our various fields regarding sharing research findings via preprints. I’m sharing the results here so that more people can weigh in and be part of this conversation, as we are considering preprints as key part of our open science strategy for Taking the Pulse of the Planet.
The overall sentiment about publishing via preprints is overwhelmingly positive, which is not surprising since we have so many engineers in our community, but there were some helpful caveats:
one respondent pointed out that he stays in contact with the journal editor(s) of a journal of interest (as preprints do not preclude eventual peer reviewed article submission) and he is careful to avoid disqualifying license choices:
I do post my research on arXiv.org as long as the journal that I am targeting for the peer-review manuscript allows it.
I always make sure to select the correct copyright from the preprint agreement, as some form of license prevents the journal from considering your manuscript.
There were 2 preprint services mentioned by name arXiv.org and ChemRxiv. But of course there are others, and this will vary by field. What does your lab prefer, regarding preprints? What preprint servers are we missing from our list? Do you have any questions or concerns about preprints that we should discuss?
Hi all–my first post here, so hopefully I’m doing this right! I’ve been interested in this discussion topic for years, and think it’s really interesting that most folks Zach talked with were pro-preprint. I usually don’t submit to pre-print servers, for two primary reasons: 1) I really believe in the peer-review process, and find that my papers are notably better afterwards such that I don’t want an earlier version out there and 2) for most of what I work on, 6 months isn’t going to change the impact of it. I recognize for #2 that that might just be my research, of course. Of course, I’m very open to hearing why it’s beneficial and changing my tune, so would be interested in what this group thinks!
Hi Kamini, thanks so much for complicating this topic for us! Our intention is not to railroad an open science agenda over objections, we really want to know where this field is, practice-wise, and though we do want to lean towards Open when possible, we realize that opinions differ, and there are good reasons on both sides of this issue.
Some options to consider:
- preprint doesn’t preclude later journal article that builds on it
- preprint review exists! Check out https://prereview.org/
- rapid release for some kinds of research matters a lot (cf covid research)
- for preprints there are no APC charges for open access, OA by default without paying thousands of dollars per article, and its accessible to everyone (with an internet connection)
- Some foundation funders are requiring it, refusing to pay APCs, Gates Foundation, and others (moreso on the biomedical/life sciences side, but I am curious about Gates as a possible funder for fresh water as it relates to human health, especially in developing countries (anyone here work with BMGF?)
- Recent federal policy changes via OMB uniform guidance might also bring some additional pressure to an already disrupted publishing industry. Preprints might be a valuable escape hatch.
- If you want, I can bring in some experts that know more about this than I do!
Indeed, I don’t think this is an easy question, and you have good reasonings here for preprints! Bringing this conversation back around made me think I should share this really interesting debate at EGU on publication (I believe it’s open to all, and if so, you can click the video on the right of your screen to watch it): Session GDB7 . There’s a lot of food for thought here both in support of traditional journals AND other ways of sharing information. One argument made here is that all of these types of communication are an important part of a scientific ecosystem…hard to argue with that.
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Completely agree! In no way do we want to denigrate the value of peer review. part of a broader scientific ecosystem is a great way to frame it.