It’s Our Preprint Anniversary!
Can you believe it’s been one whole year since we launched our preprint-posting partnership with bioRxiv? This calls for a celebration!
Just last May, we began offering authors the choice of having PLOS post their manuscript to the preprint server, bioRxiv, when they submitted to a PLOS journal*. Our opt-in service has made it easier for authors to post their work early and has encouraged many authors to try preprinting their research for the first time. As of today, we’ve posted more than 2,500 preprints!
Many of our authors have now seen their work go from preprint to published and it’s amazing to see the transformation their work has taken – just take a look at the examples below.
| Posted
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Published
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|---|---|
| Aug 21, 2018 If a fish can pass the mark test, what are the implications for consciousness and self-awareness testing in animals?
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Feb 7, 2019 in PLOS Biology
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| June 4, 2018 Precise prediction of antibiotic resistance in Escherichia coli from full genome sequences
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Dec 14, 2018 in PLOS Computational Biology |
| July 2, 2018 Genetically modified pigs are protected from classical swine fever virus
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Dec 13, 2018 in PLOS Pathogens |
Why we preprint
Whether you’re an author, an editor, or just an avid science reader, preprints offer a lot of advantages for how we share and consume information: they allow research to be shared openly and broadly, spark feedback and collaborations that may not have happened otherwise, enable authors to claim results and demonstrate their work for timely opportunities such as grant proposals and promotions. But if you really want to know how preprints advance science, just ask our authors:
“As statisticians, we provide analysis and data visualization methods for scientists in the field. Sharing code through GitHub and preprints through bioRxiv provides researchers with the latest methodologies as early as possible. The other benefit is that the scientific community can provide researchers with useful feedback prior to publication. This means that we can tailor new methods to scientists’ needs. These interactions were very enriching, and I recommend Open Science to everybody.”
Stijn Hawinkel, Department of Data Analysis and Mathematical Modelling, Ghent University, Ghent, Belgium
A unified framework for unconstrained and constrained ordination of microbiome read count data
“Publishing a preprint is a great way to get feedback as early as possible from the community. We actually improved the final version of our paper not only based on the great reviews we received from the formal peer review process, but also based on the feedback we learned through Twitter, and other channels.”
Charlotte Herzeel, ExaScience Life Lab, IMEC, Leuven, Belgium
elPrep 4: A multithreaded framework for sequence analysis
“I posted a preprint to bioRxiv when I submitted to PLOS Genetics because I wanted to share our story with scientific community. At submission, I believed we had a complete story that would interest researchers working on various aspects of adhesion biology. I knew that the story would likely develop further after peer review, but I wanted to share the core results with the community.”
Adam Kwiatkowski, University of Pittsburgh School of Medicine, Pittsburgh, Pennsylvania, United States of America
What’s next
Champagne! But our work on preprints isn’t over yet. We’re experimenting with new ways to raise awareness and interaction with preprint manuscripts through events like live preprint journal clubs, hosted by PREreview, and expanding our preprint offerings to include programs like Preprint Editors on PLOS ONE and PLOS Genetics.We’re also going through ALL of our data on preprints that we’ve collected over the past year to share back to you. Please join us in celebrating this month and stay tuned for more insights into our preprint program soon.
*Facilitated posting to bioRxiv has been available on PLOS ONE, PLOS Computational Biology, PLOS Genetics, PLOS NTDs, and PLOS Pathogens since May 2018 and on PLOS Biology since July 2018