Proliferation of Papers and Preprints During the Coronavirus Disease 2019 Pandemic: Progress or Problems With Peer Review?

Vlasschaert, Caitlyn; Topf, Joel Michels; Hiremath, Swapnil

doi:10.1053/j.ackd.2020.08.003

Cited by 62 publications

(68 citation statements)

References 63 publications

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“…As we know, extraordinary phases in the history of science are marked by a sharp acceleration of progress. Covid-19 research represents one of the most intense scientific efforts in the modern history of science (Vlasschaert, Topf, Hiremath, 2020). Scientists and journal editors and reviewers alike were (and arguably still are) overwhelmed with a tsunami of COVID-19 papers (Brainard, 2020; Kwon, 2020).…”

Section: Discussionmentioning

confidence: 99%

“…Da Silva (2020: 1) call it “open public scrutiny for preprints”. That is, even though preprints are not formally reviewed before being uploaded to preprint servers, they are often commented on and shared on social media—including blog posts (Vlasschaert, Topf, Hiremath, 2020)—by laymen and experts alike (Majumder et al, 2020; Fraser et al, 2020), downloaded, and periodically updated by its author(s) once online, and cited – even more cited than published articles (Gianola et al, 2020). Some independent initiatives have also “arisen whereby reviews are posted in the comments section of preprint servers and hosted on independent websites” (Fraser et al; from 34).…”

Section: Discussionmentioning

confidence: 99%

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COVID-19 Preprints and Their Publishing Rate: An Improved Method

Lachapelle

2020

Preprint

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Context: As the COVID-19 pandemic persists around the world, the scientific community continues to produce and circulate knowledge on the deadly disease at an unprecedented rate. During the early stage of the pandemic, preprints represented nearly 40% of all English-language COVID-19 scientific corpus (6, 000+ preprints | 16, 000+ articles). As of mid-August 2020, that proportion dropped to around 28% (13, 000+ preprints | 49, 000+ articles). Nevertheless, preprint servers remain a key engine in the efficient dissemination of scientific work on this infectious disease. But, giving the uncertified nature of the scientific manuscripts curated on preprint repositories, their integration to the global ecosystem of scientific communication is not without creating serious tensions. This is especially the case for biomedical knowledge since the dissemination of bad science can have widespread societal consequences. Scope: In this paper, I propose a robust method that will allow the repeated monitoring and measuring of COVID-19 preprint's publication rate. I also introduce a new API called Upload-or-Perish. It is a micro-API service that enables a client to query a specific preprint manuscript's publication status and associated meta-data using a unique ID. This tool is in active development. Data: I use Covid-19 Open Research Dataset (CORD-19) to calculate COVID-19 preprint corpus' conversion rate to peer-reviewed articles. CORD-19 dataset includes preprints from arXiv, bioRxiv, and medRxiv. Methods: I utilize conditional fuzzy logic on article titles to determine if a preprint has a published counterpart version in the database. My approach is an important departure from previous studies that rely exclusively on bioRxiv API to ascertain preprints' publication status. This is problematic since the level of false positives in bioRxiv metadata could be as high as 37%. Findings: My analysis reveals that around 15% of COVID-19 preprint manuscripts in CORD-19 dataset that were uploaded on from arXiv, bioRxiv, and medRxiv between January and early August 2020 were published in a peer-reviewed venue. When compared to the most recent measure available, this represents a two-fold increase in a period of two months. My discussion review and theorize on the potential explanations for COVID-19 preprints' low conversion rate.

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Section: Discussionmentioning

confidence: 99%

Section: Discussionmentioning

confidence: 99%

COVID-19 Preprints and Their Publishing Rate: An Improved Method

Lachapelle

2020

Preprint

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“…Ahora bien, la ventaja de la rapidez en compartir los resultados tiene una contrapartida: son documentos que no han pasado aún por una revisión experta y, a veces, pueden ser controvertidos. Esto ha pasado recientemente en diversos artículos publicados como preprints que se han retirado de la consulta por contener errores, como fue el caso de un artículo publicado como preprint por The Lancet sobre el uso de la hidroxicloroquina para combatir la COVID 19 y que tuvo que ser retirado porque se demostró que los datos utilizados no eran correctos (Vlasschaert, 2020). Por ello es preciso que se sepa que el documento no ha pasado por una revisión experta y por tanto, que sus resultados deben tomarse con cautela.…”

Section: Los Preprintsunclassified

Ciencia abierta: un modelo con piezas por encajar

Abadal

2021

arbor

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La ciencia abierta constituye una transformación radical en la manera de llevar a cabo la investigación científica. Se trata de un nuevo modelo de hacer ciencia que se basa en el trabajo colaborativo entre personas de la academia y también en la apertura y la transparencia de todas las fases de la investigación (no solo la publicación final, sino también la recogida de datos, el peer review o los criterios de evaluación, entre otros aspectos). La ciencia abierta tiene sus antecedentes en el uso de las Tecnologías de la Información y la Comunicación (TIC) por quienes investigan y en la consolidación del acceso abierto a las publicaciones. Por otro lado, en su desarrollo también ha contado con tres elementos facilitadores: su conexión con los valores clásicos de la ciencia, la acción de responsables políticos con capacidad resolutiva en sus organizaciones, y el apoyo institucional, en especial de la Comisión Europea y de diversas agencias de financiación de la investigación. En el artículo se analizan diversas definiciones de ciencia abierta para destacar sus características fundamentales: apertura, transparencia y reutilización de contenidos. Se considera la ciencia abierta como un término «paraguas» que agrupa diversas piezas o elementos como el acceso abierto, los datos abiertos (FAIR, en sus siglas en inglés, findable, accessible, interoperable y reusable), la revisión abierta, el uso de preprints, la ciencia ciudadana y los nuevos modelos de evaluación. A pesar de que existe discrepancia sobre cuáles son esas piezas elementales, el artículo se centra en los seis elementos mencionados, repasa la situación actual de cada uno de ellos, y pone especial énfasis en su grado de desarrollo y en lo que aportan a la ciencia abierta. Se constata una notable diversidad en el desarrollo de cada una de las piezas y también la ausencia de una acción coordinada, lo que podría suponer una ralentización de las prácticas de ciencia abierta. A pesar de los destacados avances en acceso abierto, de la notable compartición de datos de investigación y de un respetable uso de preprints, se ha avanzado muy poco en el establecimiento de nuevas métricas y de nuevos modelos de evaluación, aun cuando estos son un elemento clave para incentivar la expansión de la ciencia abierta en todas las disciplinas.

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“…Considering the reported influence of preprints on policy-making during the COVID-19 pandemic [27] and ongoing article retractions [28], the concern about the quality of un-refereed preprints is genuine [29]. The Sinai Immunology Review Project is an example of an institutional effort to review and validate the COVID-19 related preprints posted to medRxiv and bioRxiv servers [30].…”

Section: Introductionmentioning

confidence: 99%

Publication practices during the COVID-19 pandemic: Biomedical preprints and peer-reviewed literature

Sevryugina

Dicks

2021

Preprint

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The coronavirus pandemic introduced many changes to our society, and deeply affected the established in biomedical sciences publication practices. In this article, we present a comprehensive study of the changes in scholarly publication landscape for biomedical sciences during the COVID-19 pandemic, with special emphasis on preprints posted on bioRxiv and medRxiv servers. We observe the emergence of a new category of preprint authors working in the fields of immunology, microbiology, infectious diseases, and epidemiology, who extensively used preprint platforms during the pandemic for sharing their immediate findings. The majority of these findings were works-in-progress unfitting for a prompt acceptance by refereed journals. The COVID-19 preprints that became peer-reviewed journal articles were often submitted to journals concurrently with the posting on a preprint server, and the entire publication cycle, from preprint to the online journal article, took on average 63 days. This included an expedited peer-review process of 43 days and journal’s production stage of 15 days, however there was a wide variation in publication delays between journals. Only one third of COVID-19 preprints posted during the first nine months of the pandemic appeared as peer-reviewed journal articles. These journal articles display high Altmetric Attention Scores further emphasizing a significance of COVID-19 research during 2020. This article will be relevant to editors, publishers, open science enthusiasts, and anyone interested in changes that the 2020 crisis transpired to publication practices and a culture of preprints in life sciences.

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Proliferation of Papers and Preprints During the Coronavirus Disease 2019 Pandemic: Progress or Problems With Peer Review?

Cited by 62 publications

References 63 publications

COVID-19 Preprints and Their Publishing Rate: An Improved Method

COVID-19 Preprints and Their Publishing Rate: An Improved Method

Ciencia abierta: un modelo con piezas por encajar

Publication practices during the COVID-19 pandemic: Biomedical preprints and peer-reviewed literature

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