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Preprinting a pandemic: the role of preprints in the COVID-19 pandemic

View ORCID ProfileNicholas Fraser, View ORCID ProfileLiam Brierley, View ORCID ProfileGautam Dey, View ORCID ProfileJessica K Polka, View ORCID ProfileMáté Pálfy, View ORCID ProfileJonathon Alexis Coates
doi: https://doi.org/10.1101/2020.05.22.111294
Nicholas Fraser
1Leibniz Information Centre for Economics, Düsternbrooker Weg 120, 24105 Kiel, Germany
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Liam Brierley
2Department of Health Data Science, University of Liverpool, Brownlow Street, Liverpool, L69 3GL, UK
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Gautam Dey
3MRC Lab for Molecular Cell Biology, UCL, Gower Street, London WC1E 6BT, UK
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Jessica K Polka
4ASAPbio, 600-16th St Ste N312E MC2200, San Francisco, CA 94143-2517 San Francisco, CA, USA
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Máté Pálfy
5The Company of Biologists, Bidder Building, Station Road, Histon, Cambridge CB24 9LF, UK
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Jonathon Alexis Coates
6Hughes Hall College, University of Cambridge, Wollaston Rd, Cambridge, CB1 2EW, UK
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  • For correspondence: jc2216@cam.ac.uk
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Abstract

The world continues to face an ongoing viral pandemic that presents a serious threat to human health. The virus underlying the COVID-19 disease, SARS-CoV-2, has caused over 3.2 million confirmed cases and 220,000 deaths between January and April 2020. Although the last pandemic of respiratory disease of viral origin swept the globe only a decade ago, the way science operates and responds to current events has experienced a paradigm shift in the interim. The scientific community has responded rapidly to the COVID-19 pandemic, releasing over 16,000 COVID-19 related scientific articles within 4 months of the first confirmed case, of which at least 6,000 were hosted by preprint servers. We focused our analysis on bioRxiv and medRxiv, two growing preprint servers for biomedical research, investigating the attributes of COVID-19 preprints, their access and usage rates, characteristics of their sharing on online platforms, and the relationship between preprints and their published articles. Our data provides evidence for increased scientific and public engagement (COVID-19 preprints are accessed and distributed at least 15 times more than non-COVID-19 preprints) and changes in journalistic practice with reference to preprints. We also find evidence for changes in preprinting and publishing behaviour: COVID-19 preprints are shorter, with fewer panels and tables, and reviewed faster. Our results highlight the unprecedented role of preprints and preprint servers in the dissemination of COVID-19 science, and the likely long-term impact of the pandemic on the scientific publishing landscape.

Competing Interest Statement

JP is the executive director of ASAPbio, a non-profit organization promoting the productive use of preprints in the life sciences. GD is a bioRxiv Affiliate, part of a volunteer group of scientists that screen preprints deposited on the bioRxiv server. MP is the community manager for preLights, a non-profit preprint highlighting service. GD and JAC are contributors to preLights. The authors declare no other competing interests.

Footnotes

  • https://github.com/preprinting-a-pandemic/pandemic_preprints

Copyright 
The copyright holder for this preprint is the author/funder, who has granted bioRxiv a license to display the preprint in perpetuity. It is made available under a CC-BY 4.0 International license.
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Posted May 23, 2020.
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Preprinting a pandemic: the role of preprints in the COVID-19 pandemic
Nicholas Fraser, Liam Brierley, Gautam Dey, Jessica K Polka, Máté Pálfy, Jonathon Alexis Coates
bioRxiv 2020.05.22.111294; doi: https://doi.org/10.1101/2020.05.22.111294
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Preprinting a pandemic: the role of preprints in the COVID-19 pandemic
Nicholas Fraser, Liam Brierley, Gautam Dey, Jessica K Polka, Máté Pálfy, Jonathon Alexis Coates
bioRxiv 2020.05.22.111294; doi: https://doi.org/10.1101/2020.05.22.111294

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