Preprints as accelerator of scholarly communication: An empirical analysis in Mathematics

Abstract

In this study we analyse the key driving factors of preprints in enhancing scholarly communication. To this end we use four groups of metrics, one referring to scholarly communication and based on bibliometric indicators (Web of Science and Scopus citations), while the others reflect usage (usage counts in Web of Science), capture (Mendeley readers) and social media attention (Tweets). Hereby we measure two effects associated with preprint publishing: publication delay and impact. We define and use several indicators to assess the impact of journal articles with previous preprint versions in arXiv. In particular, the indicators measure several times characterizing the process of arXiv preprints publishing and the reviewing process of the journal versions, and the ageing patterns of citations to preprints. In addition, we compare the observed patterns between preprints and non-OA articles without any previous preprint versions in arXiv. We could observe that the "early-view" and "openaccess" effects of preprints contribute to a measurable citation and readership advantage of preprints. Articles with preprint versions are more likely to be mentioned in social media and have shorter Altmetric attention delay. Usage and capture prove to have only moderate but stronger correlation with citations than Tweets. The different slopes of the regression lines between the different indicators reflect different order of magnitude of usage, capture and citation data.

Motivations, concerns and selection biases when posting preprints: a survey of bioRxiv authors

“…Even when controlling for these factors, the size of the citation/altmetric advantage remains substantial: Fu and Hughey (2019) report that articles with a preprint received 1.36 times more citations and 1.49 times higher Altmetric Attention Scores than articles without a preprint, whilst Fraser et al (2020) report that articles with a preprint received 1.56 times more citations, 2.33 times more tweets, 1.55 times more blog mentions, 1.47 times more mainstream media mentions, 1.30 times more Wikipedia citations and 1.81 times more Mendeley reads than articles without a preprint. These findings of a “bioRxiv citation/altmetric advantage” are in agreement with findings based on similar studies conducted on arXiv (Davis & Fromerth, 2007; Larivière et al, 2014; Moed, 2007; Wang, Chen, et al, 2020; Wang, Glänzel, et al, 2020), and related studies that have investigated the more general Open Access (OA) citation advantage, finding that OA articles tend to be more strongly cited than non-OA articles (Gargouri et al, 2010; Archambault et al, 2016; Piwowar et al, 2018).…”

Did You Ask for Citations? An Insight into Preprint Citations en route to Open Science

“…12.5% for the journal versions) originate from papers assigned to another discipline beyond mathematics [13].…”

“…For example, by late 2016, the preprints posted in arXiv between its launch on August 1991 and 2016 had received 135,782 citations, of which 23,288 were from 2016 [11]. Previous studies have investigated citations for preprints in arXiv [11][12][13][14]. This study investigates citation patterns between 2017 and 2020 for preprints published in two specialized preprint servers publishing research articles in chemistry (ChemRxiv) and in biology (bioRxiv), and between 2018 and 2020 in one multidisciplinary preprint repository (Research Square).…”

Adjusting the use of preprints to accommodate the ‘quality’ factor in response to COVID-19

“…However, some preliminary evidence already suggests that a solid percentage of published papers that were preceded by preprints garner higher altmetric scores than papers that were published without taking the preprint route. 2 Fortified altmetrics, citations, and social media attention have been found for bioRxiv 3 and arXiv 4 , 5 preprints. Preprints are frequently touted as tools to promote the work of early-career researchers, many of whom see this form of publication as a rapid and easy way to showcase their developing work, 6 or to enhance the speed and efficiency of scientific exchange.…”