RT Journal Article
SR Electronic
T1 On the origin of nonequivalent states: how we can talk about preprints
JF bioRxiv
FD Cold Spring Harbor Laboratory
SP 092817
DO 10.1101/092817
A1 Cameron Neylon
A1 Damian Pattinson
A1 Geoffrey Bilder
A1 Jennifer Lin
YR 2016
UL http://biorxiv.org/content/early/2016/12/09/092817.abstract
AB Increasingly, preprints are at the center of conversations across the research ecosystem. But disagreements remain about the role they play. Do they “count” for research assessment? Is it ok to post preprints in more than one place? In this paper, we argue that these discussions often conflate two separate issues, the history of the manuscript and the status granted it by different communities. In this paper, we propose a new model that distinguishes the characteristics of the object, its “state”, from the subjective “standing” granted to it by different communities. This provides a way to discuss the difference in practices between communities, which will deliver more productive conversations and facilitate negotiation on how to collectively improve the process of scholarly communications not only for preprints but other forms of scholarly contributions.