Preprinting a pandemic
Jonny A Coates
Institute for Globally Distributed Open Research and Education (IDGORE)
@JACoates
jacoates.co.uk
trends, dissemination, and regulation of COVID-19 preprints
Traditional publishing is slow, requires more data than ever and hinders ECRs
Ron Vale – bioRxiv & PNAS 2015 http://www.biorxiv.org/content/early/2015/07/11/022368
Sekara et al. PNAS 2018 https://doi.org/10.1073/pnas.1800471115
We need to improve speed of knowledge distribution and our means of quality assessment
Preprints
Preprints are manuscripts shared online before the completion of journal-organized peer review.
Permanent
Versioned
Citable
Fraser et al, 2019 10.1101/673665v1
Not peer reviewed ≠ poor quality
peer reviewed ≠ good quality
Months - years
~1-2 days
Months - years
Preprints were almost poised for a pandemic…
In contrast to the slow, laborious traditional publishing methods
Are preprints being used more than normal to communicate COVID-19 science?
What usage are preprint servers experiencing?
What do COVID-19 preprints look like?
How are preprints being shared?
Can we comment on the quality of preprints?
Are preprints being used more than normal to communicate COVID-19 science?
Scientific community has rapidly responded to the pandemic
COVID-19 preprints were published at accelerated rates
(two-way ANOVA, preprint type*publisher interaction, F9,5273 = 6.6, p < 0.001)
The scientific response to the pandemic was rapid – within 1 month of first case
Preprints represent a significant proportion of the COVID-19 literature
Especially early on….
Summary I
COVID-19 preprints are being accessed and downloaded at unprecedented levels
How are COVID-19 preprints being shared?
COVID-19 preprints are cited, tweeted and covered by news organisations
Preprints represent a significant proportion of the COVID-19 literature
Labs are posting preprints for the first time directly as a response to the pandemic
COVID-19 preprints are being accessed, downloaded and shared at unprecedented levels – & not just by scientists
Summary II
But there is a danger to all this sharing as science is hijacked by right-wing media and conspiracy groups
But! Not just preprints, also seen in published, peer reviewed, articles.
Which is more dangerous?
Can we trust preprints?
~100 articles
Jan – April 2020 (initial phase of the pandemic)
~100 COVID & 100 Non-COVID articles (total of 400 manuscripts)
COVID-19 preprints show little change in figure content upon publication
Over 70% (COVID or non-COVID) preprints have figure rearrangements or no changes upon publication
Over 85% of COVID-19 (>94% of non-COVID-19) abstracts have no significant changes upon publication
6% of non-COVID-19
15% of COVID-19 abstracts undergo a discrete change in key conclusions
1. What are the rates of preprint posting?
2. Who is posting COVID-19 preprints?
3. How are COVID-19 preprints accessed and shared?
4. Are COVID-19 preprints sufficient “quality”?
100 times past epidemics, ¼ of articles
authors from UK, US, China new to preprinting
18 times more views; 27 times more downloads than non-COVID
quality not detectably different to non-COVID, >85% have no significant changes to key conclusions upon publication
sharing work/code on Twitter & posting preprints can lead to collabs!
Preprints have experienced a cultural shift during COVID-19
From bottom left clockwise:�Dr Nicholas Fraser, Leibniz Information Centre for Economics
Dr Liam Brierley, University of Liverpool
Dr Máté Pálfy, Company of Biologists
Dr Gautam Dey, EMBL
Dr Federico Nanni, Alan Turing Institute
Dr Jessica Polka, ASAPbio
Thanks, Grazie, Gracias, danke, Kiitos, Kea leboga, Merci, ob-ree-gah-doh, Asante
Why preprint?
Gives you more visibility & more citations
Fraser et al, 2019 10.1101/673665v1
Steve Royle, https://quantixed.org/2020/03/30/screenager-screening-times-at-biorxiv/
Can use altmetrics in cover letter to journals to show impact
Screening takes ~1 day
Makes academia more equitable and supports ECRs
https://ecrlife.org/why-you-should-publish-your-work-as-a-preprint-a-conversation-with-dr-prachee-avasthi/
Prachee Avasthi
This significant use of preprints is unique to the COVID-19 pandemic
So who is publishing all these preprints?
Labs shifted expertise to best help with pandemic research
usage metric | rate ratio |
Blogs | 3.7 |
Wikipedia articles | 4.5 |
Tweets | 7.6 |
Comments | 11.0 |
Citations | 13.7 |
News articles | 92.8 |
(all correlations Spearman’s rank rho estimates)
COVID-19 preprints are being widely shared across multiple platforms
Scientific messages are getting through but significant “hijacking” by right-wing conspiracy groups – and this can be linked to specific preprints
Aerosol and surface stability of HCoV-19 (SARS-CoV-2) compared to SARS-CoV-1
COVID-19 Antibody Seroprevalence in Santa Clara County, California
Nb. This data was sampled earlier than the prev slide
What do COVID-19 preprints look like?
COVID-19 preprints are shorter than non-COVID-19 preprints
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Dark bar = previously posted preprints
Light bar = First time posting preprints
COVID-19 articles have less data availability and less transparency in peer-review
COVID-19 preprints published more and in wide-array of journals
The degree of change is not associated with any specific location or type of change
Major conclusion changes do not associate with a longer time to publication
The degree of change does not appear to be impacted by final published journal