With concerns about the quality of non-peer-reviewed data, the applied sciences, especially biological and life science, have been slow to embrace preprint publishing on servers like PeerJ, bioRxiv and medRxiv.
However, a new study by researchers in the U.S., UK and Germany suggests the COVID-19 pandemic has created a “cultural shift” in how both the scientific community and general public use and respond to preprint papers.
“Our results show that preprints have been widely adopted for the dissemination and communication of COVID-19 research, and in turn, the pandemic has greatly impacted the preprint and science publishing landscape,” the researchers write in their paper, published in PLOS Biology.
Of the 125,000 COVID-19-related scientific articles published from January to October 2020, more than 30,000 papers—or 25%—were hosted by preprint servers. In the first few months of the pandemic, that number was even higher, with 40% of the COVID-19 literature shared as preprints.
“The COVID-19 crisis represents the first time that preprints have been widely used outside of specific communities to communicate during an epidemic,” say the researchers.
In fact, the researchers found striking increases in multiple attributes of COVID-19 preprints, including access and downloads, comments, citations and mainstream media attention.
At the start of the January time window, for example, the researchers calculated that COVID-19 preprints received 18x more abstract views and 30x more downloads than their non-COVID-19 counterparts. While the most commented-on non-COVID-19 preprint received 68 comments, the most talked about COVID-19 preprint clocked more than 580 comments. Interestingly, one paper—which had 129 comments—was retracted within 3 days of being posted following intense public scrutiny.
“These data suggest that the most discussed or controversial COVID-19 preprints are rapidly and publicly scrutinized, with commenting systems being used for direct feedback and discussion of preprints,” write the researchers.
In addition to a seeming “peer-review comment system,” over 40% of COVID-19 preprints submitted in January were published by the end of October in a peer-reviewed scientific journal, further expunging concerns of poor-quality research in preprints.
In terms of citations, the researchers found higher proportions overall of COVID-19 preprints that received at least a single citation (58%) than non-COVID-19 preprints (22%). According to the study, the highest cited COVID-19 preprint had 652 citations, with the 10th most cited receiving 277 citations. Many of the highest cited preprints focused on the viral cell receptor ACE2 (angiotensin-converting enzyme 2) or the epidemiology of COVID-19.
But it wasn’t just other scientists citing preprint COVID-19 studies. Within a set of 81 COVID-19 policy documents retrieved by the research team from the European Centre for Disease Prevention and Control, United Kingdom Parliamentary Office of Science and Technology and the World Health Organization, 52 of them cited COVID-19 preprints—nearly 65%.
The upward momentum of reads, downloads and citations bubbled over to news media, as well. Overall, COVID-19 preprints were referenced in news articles at a rate almost 100 times that of non-COVID-19 preprints. Twenty-nine percent of pandemic-related preprints were featured in at least a single news article compared with 1% of non-COVID-19 preprints.
The use of preprints in news reporting and policy documents represents not only a marked change, the researchers say, but also an “unprecedented opportunity to bridge the scientific and media communities to create a consensus on the reporting of preprints.”
In an unrelated study, research stakeholders cited early and rapid dissemination as one of the largest benefits of preprints. The international research team agrees, saying the findings are “underscored by the 6-month median lag between posting of a preprint and subsequent journal publication.” Even if traditional publishers continue to reduce time-to-publish as they have been during the pandemic, the 1-to-3-days screening time of bioRxiv and medRxiv is impossible to compete with.
It is this advantage that may continue to propel preprint uptake in the post-COVID-19 future.
“As researchers in a given field begin to preprint, their colleagues may feel pressure to also preprint in order to avoid being scooped,” the international research team concludes. “Further studies on understanding the motivations behind posting preprints, for example, through quantitative and qualitative author surveys, may help funders and other stakeholders that support the usage of preprints to address some of the social barriers for their uptake.”