International authorship and collaboration across bioRxiv preprints

Abdill, Richard J.; Adamowicz, Elizabeth M.; Blekhman, Ran

doi:10.7554/elife.58496

Cited by 26 publications

(33 citation statements)

References 44 publications

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“…Although the data is not large, we can deduce that international collaborators drive the adoption of preprints. This trend has been observed in some African countries, including Kenya (Abdill et al, 2020 ). Overall, based on the 2018 data we obtained from the BioRXiv preprint server, one of the largest available, Kenya is leading Africa in preprint publications ( Figure 4 ).…”

Section: Resultssupporting

confidence: 60%

“…Overall, based on the 2018 data we obtained from the BioRXiv preprint server, one of the largest available, Kenya is leading Africa in preprint publications ( Figure 4 ). However, as of 2020, South Africa and Ethiopia were leading in Africa in the number of preprints deposited in BioRXiv (Abdill et al, 2020 ). The growth in adoption of preprints by South African and Ethiopian researchers may be partly explained by the increased uptake of the publisher-driven opt-in options to post preprints in BioRXiv (PLOS, 2019 ).…”

Section: Resultsmentioning

confidence: 99%

“…Compared with other countries globally, the adoption of preprints in Africa still lags behind ( Figure 4 ). Abdill et al ( 2020 ) found that as of 2020, wealthy countries in North America and Europe contributed more preprints on BioRXiv compared to the rest of the world. South Africa was ranked in the 29th place with 182 preprints, followed by Ethiopia with 57 preprints in the 42nd place (Abdill et al, 2020 ).…”

Section: Resultsmentioning

confidence: 99%

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Open Science in Kenya: Where Are We?

Mwangi

Mainye²,

Ouso

et al. 2021

Front. Res. Metr. Anal.

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According to the United Nations Educational, Scientific, and Cultural Organization (UNESCO), Open Science is the movement to make scientific research and data accessible to all. It has great potential for advancing science. At its core, it includes (but is not limited to) open access, open data, and open research. Some of the associated advantages are promoting collaboration, sharing and reproducibility in research, and preventing the reinvention of the wheel, thus saving resources. As research becomes more globalized and its output grows exponentially, especially in data, the need for open scientific research practices is more evident — the future of modern science. This has resulted in a concerted global interest in open science uptake. Even so, barriers still exist. The formal training curriculum in most, if not all, universities in Kenya does not equip students with the knowledge and tools to subsequently practice open science in their research. Therefore, to work openly and collaboratively, there is a need for awareness and training in the use of open science tools. These have been neglected, especially in most developing countries, and remain barriers to the cause. Moreover, there is scanty research on the state of affairs regarding the practice and/or adoption of open science. Thus, we developed, through the OpenScienceKE framework, a model to narrow the gap. A sensitize-train-hack-collaborate model was applied in Nairobi, the economic and administrative capital of Kenya. Using the model, we sensitized through seminars, trained on the use of tools through workshops, applied the skills learned in training through hackathons to collaboratively answer the question on the state of open science in Kenya. While the former parts of the model had 20–50 participants, the latter part mainly involved participants with a bioinformatics background, leveraging their advanced computational skills. This model resulted in an open resource that researchers can use to publish as open access cost-effectively. Moreover, we observed a growing interest in open science practices in Kenya through literature search and data mining and that lack of awareness and skills may still hinder the adoption and practice of open science. Furthermore, at the time of the analyses, we surprisingly found that out of the 20,069 papers downloaded from BioRXiv, only 18 had Kenyan authors, a majority of which are international (16) collaborations. This may suggest poor uptake of the use of preprints among Kenyan researchers. The findings in this study highlight the state of open science in Kenya and challenges facing its adoption and practice while bringing forth possible areas for primary consideration in the campaign toward open science. It also proposes a model (sensitize-train-hack-collaborate model) that may be adopted by researchers, funders and other proponents of open science to address some of the challenges faced in promoting its adoption in Kenya.

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Section: Resultssupporting

confidence: 60%

Section: Resultsmentioning

confidence: 99%

Section: Resultsmentioning

confidence: 99%

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Open Science in Kenya: Where Are We?

Mwangi

Mainye²,

Ouso

et al. 2021

Front. Res. Metr. Anal.

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“…In total, we matched 54,289 preprints to a country (72.8%); for COVID-19 preprints alone, 6,692 preprints (65.4%) were matched to a country. Note that a similar, albeit more sophisticated method of matching bioRxiv affiliation information with the ROR API service was recently documented by Abdill and colleagues [ 51 ].…”

Section: Methodsmentioning

confidence: 99%

The evolving role of preprints in the dissemination of COVID-19 research and their impact on the science communication landscape

et al. 2021

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The world continues to face a life-threatening viral pandemic. The virus underlying the Coronavirus Disease 2019 (COVID-19), Severe Acute Respiratory Syndrome Coronavirus 2 (SARS-CoV-2), has caused over 98 million confirmed cases and 2.2 million deaths since January 2020. Although the most recent respiratory viral pandemic swept the globe only a decade ago, the way science operates and responds to current events has experienced a cultural shift in the interim. The scientific community has responded rapidly to the COVID-19 pandemic, releasing over 125,000 COVID-19–related scientific articles within 10 months of the first confirmed case, of which more than 30,000 were hosted by preprint servers. We focused our analysis on bioRxiv and medRxiv, 2 growing preprint servers for biomedical research, investigating the attributes of COVID-19 preprints, their access and usage rates, as well as characteristics of their propagation on online platforms. Our data provide evidence for increased scientific and public engagement with preprints related to COVID-19 (COVID-19 preprints are accessed more, cited more, and shared more on various online platforms than non-COVID-19 preprints), as well as changes in the use of preprints by journalists and policymakers. We also find evidence for changes in preprinting and publishing behaviour: COVID-19 preprints are shorter and reviewed faster. Our results highlight the unprecedented role of preprints and preprint servers in the dissemination of COVID-19 science and the impact of the pandemic on the scientific communication landscape.

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“…Despite this, adoption of preprints so far has been mostly driven by researchers in North America and Europe. A recent study of bioRxiv content concluded that countries such as the United States and the United Kingdom are overrepresented on bioRxiv relative to their overall scientific output (Abdill et al, 2020) . This is probably not a surprising trend; the researchers more comfortable posting a preprint are likely to be those with more established recognition and positions (N. C. , and the countries with a high preprint representation overlap with those where more funders and national agencies have expressed support for preprints.…”

Section: Disparities In Adoptionmentioning

confidence: 99%

Preprints: Their Evolving Role in Science Communication

Puebla¹,

Rieger²

2021

Preprint

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The use of preprints for the dissemination of research in some life sciences branches has increased substantially over the last few years. In this document, we discuss preprint publishing and use in the life sciences, from initial experiments back in the 1960s to the current landscape. We explore the perspectives, advantages and perceived concerns that different stakeholders associate with preprints, and where preprints stand in the context of research assessment frameworks. We also discuss the role of preprints in the publishing ecosystem and within open science more broadly, before outlining some remaining open questions and considerations for the future evolution of preprints.

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International authorship and collaboration across bioRxiv preprints

Cited by 26 publications

References 44 publications

Open Science in Kenya: Where Are We?

Open Science in Kenya: Where Are We?

The evolving role of preprints in the dissemination of COVID-19 research and their impact on the science communication landscape

Preprints: Their Evolving Role in Science Communication

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