Speakers
Harlan M. Krumholz, MD, SM
Harold H. Hines, Jr. Professor of Medicine and Public Health
Yale University
Joseph S. Ross, MD, MHS
Professor of Medicine and Public Health
Yale University
Topic
Is It Time to Embrace Preprints? A Conversation About the First 18 Months of medRxiv
Keywords
Preprints; Preprint server; medRxiv; Open science; Health science research; Research transparency; Preliminary research reports
Key Points
-
A preprint is a research manuscript yet to be certified by peer review and accepted for publication by a journal. A preprint server, like medRxiv, is an online platform dedicated to the distribution of preprints.
-
MedRxiv is publisher-neutral. It is operated by the Cold Spring Harbor Laboratory and managed in partnership with BMJ and Yale University.
-
Server submission requirements for authors help to mitigate concerns about preprints. These include clear posting criteria (ie, original research articles only), an established screening process, and a caution to users of preprints, including researchers, journalists, and the public, that states: “Preprints are preliminary reports of work that have not been peer-reviewed. They should not be relied on to guide clinical practice or health-related behaviors and should not be reported in news media as established information.”
-
Not allowed are commentaries, editorials, opinion pieces or essays, letters to editors, narrative reviews, medical-legal research, and case reports.
Discussion Themes
The concept of “living data” or “living analyses” has grown out of the pandemic crisis and could stay on as a feature of scientific communication.
How do you think the public conversation around a preprint may positively or negatively impact the peer review process itself?
How are academic institutions acknowledging preprints in the sense of “evidence of productivity” (as for academic promotion)?
Preprints can serve as a teaching opportunity not only for reminding scientists to be discerning readers of reported science, but also for reminding the media.
Learn more about medRxiv.
Tags
#pctGR, @Collaboratory1