Project: Preprint Observatory

Experiments with faster dissemination of research began in the 1960s, and in the 1990s first preprint servers emerged and became widely used in Physical Sciences and Economics. Since 2010, more than 30 new preprint servers have emerged and the number of deposited preprints has grown exponentially, with numerous journals now supporting posting of preprints and accepting preprints as submissions for journal peer review and publication. Research on preprints is, however, still scarce. The goals of this project are: 1) Study preprint policies, submission requirements and addressing of transparency in reporting and research integrity topics of all know preprint servers that allow deposit of preprints to researchers regardless of their institutional affiliation or funding. 2) Study comments deposited on preprint servers’ platforms and social media and their relation to peer review and information exchange. 3) Study differences between preprint version(s) and version of record. Team Members (by first name alphabetical order): Ana Jerončić,1 Gerben ter Riet,2,3 IJsbrand Jan Aalbersberg,4 John P.A. Ioannidis,5-9 Joseph Costello,10 Juan Pablo Alperin,11,12 Lauren A. Maggio,10 Lex Bouter,13,14 Mario Malički,5 Steve Goodman5-7 1 Department of Research in Biomedicine and Health, University of Split School of Medicine, Split, Croatia 2 Urban Vitality Centre of Expertise, Amsterdam University of Applied Sciences, Amsterdam, The Netherlands 3 Amsterdam UMC, University of Amsterdam, Department of Cardiology, Amsterdam, The Netherlands 4 Elsevier, Amsterdam, The Netherlands 5 Meta-Research Innovation Center at Stanford (METRICS), Stanford University, Stanford, CA, USA 6 Department of Medicine, Stanford University School of Medicine, Stanford, California, USA 7 Department of Epidemiology and Population Health, Stanford University School of Medicine, Stanford, California, USA 8 Department of Biomedical Data Science, Stanford University School of Medicine, Stanford, California, USA 9 Department of Statistics, Stanford University School of Humanities and Sciences, Stanford, California, USA 10 Uniformed Services University of the Health Sciences, Bethesda, Maryland, USA 11 Scholarly Communications Lab, Simon Fraser University, Vancouver, British Columbia, Canada 12 School of Publishing, Simon Fraser University, Vancouver, British Columbia, Canada 13 Department of Philosophy, Faculty of Humanities, Vrije Universiteit, Amsterdam, The Netherlands 14 Amsterdam UMC, Vrije Universiteit, Department of Epidemiology and Statistics, Amsterdam, The Netherland