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Jonny Coates

Twitter/BSky: @JACoates

Associate Director, ASAPbio

@ASAPbio_ | mas.to/@ASAPbio

jonny.coates@asapbio.org

ASAPbio strategic directions & activities; 2024 and beyond

twitter.com/ASAPbio_ | mas.to/@ASAPbio

Original content is licensed under a Creative Commons Attribution 4.0 International License.

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ASAPbio is a researcher-driven, advocacy-focussed, non-profit working to make life sciences communication faster & more transparent

@ASAPbio_ | #ASAPbio | @JACoates

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Our funders and advisors

ASAPbio Board

Ludo Waltman (President)

Gautam Dey (Vice President)

Iain Cheeseman (Treasurer)

Jennifer Lin (Secretary)

Thabiso Motaung

R. Dyche Mullins

Kleber Neves

Kristen Ratan

ASAPbio staff

TBA (Executive Director)

Jonny Coates (Associate Director)

Anna Drangowska-Way (Contractor, comms)

Bonnie Jacobs (Contractor, design)

Jessica Polka (Consultant, previously Executive Director)

https://asapbio.org/about-us

@ASAPbio_ | #ASAPbio | @JACoates

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ASAPbio is a researcher-driven, advocacy-focussed, non-profit working to make life sciences communication faster & more transparent

@ASAPbio_ | #ASAPbio | @JACoates

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ASAPbio 2024 roadmap

asapbio.org/asapbio-2023-roadmap

1. Support culture change through community programs and outreach	2024 Fellows program ASAPbio Local Hubs program expanded to 5 locations Grow representation of researchers based in Asia, Africa and Latin America, via outreach to audiences in these geographical regions Explore collaborative marketing campaign to re-energize preprint adoption
2. Promote constructive preprint review	Host events to promote preprint commenting Engage first-time reviewers in preprint review Complete a new cycle of crowd preprint review Promote the conversion of journal clubs into preprint review clubs
3. Expand the usage of interim research products to share science earlier	Campaign to encourage sharing of early work via posters Drive awareness of alternative formats and uses of preprints Explore collaborations with scientific societies and other organizations
4. Encourage institutional recognition of preprints	Engage institutions to support the recognition of preprints Convene a working group of institutional recognition of preprints

@ASAPbio_ | #ASAPbio | @JACoates

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Community schedule 2024

@ASAPbio_ | @JACoates | jonny.coates@asapbio.org

Month (2024)	Community Call / Lunch & Learn	Topic	Speaker(s)	Registration link	Recording
Jan - 24th	CC	Connecting the dots - linking preprints to other outputs	Martyn Rittman	Register here	Link
Feb - 21st	L&L	History of peer review	Jonny Coates	Register here	Link
March - 19th	CC	Preprints across the globe; landscapes, perceptions & challenges	Ludo Waltman	Register here	Link
April - 17th	L&L	Scientific publishing and the impact of Robert Maxwell	Jonny Coates	Register here
May - 22nd	CC	The use of AI in publishing and preprints	Josh Nicholson	Register here
June - 19th	L&L	Actions you can take; writing a pitch for a preprint focussed opinion piece	Jonny Coates	Register here
July - 17th	CC	Research integrity, trust markers and forensic scientometrics	Leslie McIntosh	Register here
August - 21st	L&L	History of preprints	Jonny Coates	Register here
September	CC	Open Access and LMIC’s; the big APC failure	TBC	Register here
October - 16th	L&L	Anatomy of a journal cover letter; embedding preprint altmetrics	Jonny Coates	Register here
November	CC	Getting involved with preprint review	TBC	Register here

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@ASAPbio_ | @JACoates | jonny.coates@asapbio.org

Community Projects

$1000 support for range of community driven projects

Current community-focussed initiatives

Local hubs

Brazil, Sweden, Denmark, Nigeria, South Africa

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@ASAPbio_ | @JACoates | jonny.coates@asapbio.org

Crowd preprint review

Crowd leads organise virtual “crowds” to review chosen preprints asynchronously

Last year 4 crowds posted ~36 preprint reviews

Current pilot with LSA & interest from eLife

Setting up long term crowds

Convert journal clubs to preprint review clubs

$200 gift card; 4 reviews / year

Preprint peer review

Saturate a field with preprint reviews

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@ASAPbio_ | @JACoates | jonny.coates@asapbio.org

Best practices for the use of Ai in preprints & preprint peer review

Landscaping
Potential meeting
Form a working group

Preprint servers
Preprint review platforms

Produce a white paper

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@ASAPbio_ | @JACoates | jonny.coates@asapbio.org

Community governance, ownership & sustainability

Requiring preprints and encouraging preprint review to make research publicly available when it’s ready.
Discontinuing publishing fees, such as APCs.

Gates Foundation policy, 2024

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2025-2027

@ASAPbio_ | @JACoates | jonny.coates@asapbio.org

1. Support culture change through community programs and outreach	Fellows program revamp ASAPbio Local Hubs expansion to 20 & 1-2 regional hub lead staff member(s) Community Action Group Community Projects
2. Preprint Conversations	Integrate preprints at conferences & design programming to take advantage of their unique format Crowd preprint review and convert journal clubs to preprint review clubs Preprints & society
3. Sharing posters	Campaign to encourage sharing of early work via posters
4. Advancing institutional recognition of preprints	Engage institutions to support the recognition of preprints Convene a working group of institutional recognition of preprints Track institutional statements and policies
5. Supporting preprint based publishing	Advocate for implementations that avoid replication of poor proxies Assess and track funder policies Convene a meeting & working group

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@ASAPbio_ | @JACoates | jonny.coates@asapbio.org

Challenges

Persistent myths (poor quality, scooping, can’t cite, journal wont accept)
Hesitancy - field dependent
“Everyone I know posts preprints”
Reaching beyond USA & EU to bring the equity benefits
Education & communication - particularly in LMIC’s (unlearning and relearning)
Recognition (top-down approaches)
Full & better integration of preprints

Workflows, practices, recognition, conversations etc

Challenge the ‘lack” of preprint discussion in the broader OA movement

Communicating the biggest benefit of preprints - potential for viable change

Traditional focus, thinking and small step change
Traditional publishers, proxies (JIF, brand name etc) & peer review

Prevent a replication of the current system but with preprints

Enshrining a community-first approach

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@ASAPbio_ | @JACoates | jonny.coates@asapbio.org

Future of preprints & scholarly communication

PRC model - centered on preprints & preprint peer review
Future is based on trustworthiness and transparency
Future is community focussed, not profit focussed

Less focus on peer review

Much broader (e.g. level of transparency, indicators of trust)

Less focus on VOR & idea of a single output

Iterative and earlier sharing. Linking of various outputs from a project

Much more context-dependent discovery

Knowledge maps, Ai, data on how an article is cited/used

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Formal recognition for preprint peer review via policy change

Papers subjected to a ‘journal-independent standard peer review process [...] are considered by most cOAlition S organisations to be of equivalent merit and status as peer-reviewed publications that are published in a recognised journal or on a platform.”

Statement on July 6, 2022

Requiring preprints and encouraging preprint review to make research publicly available when it’s ready.
Discontinuing publishing fees, such as APCs.

Taking effect from 2025

Gates Foundation policy, 2024

https://journals.plos.org/plosbiology/article?id=10.1371/journal.pbio.3000273

EMBO announces that reviewed preprints fulfill the peer-reviewed publication eligibility criteria for the EMBO Postdoctoral Fellowships

Statement, April 2022

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A publish-review-curate system, directly supported by institutions & funders with preprints at the core, can achieve this

“all peer-reviewed scholarly publications authored or co-authored by individuals or institutions resulting from federally funded research are made freely available and publicly accessible by default in agency-designated repositories without any embargo or delay after publication”

“In its conclusions, the Council calls on the Commission and the member states to support policies towards a scholarly publishing model that is not-for-profit, open access and multi-format, with no costs for authors or readers.”

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@ASAPbio_ | @JACoates | jonny.coates@asapbio.org

What role could societies have in this future vision?

Values-based, community focussed, organisation

Collators of trust signals

Preprint peer review services (similar to the eLife model)
Preprint &/or preprint review curation
Establishment of markers of trust & integrity