Preprinting the COVID-19 pandemic

Abstract

25The world continues to face an ongoing viral pandemic that presents a serious threat to human 26 health. The virus underlying the COVID-19 disease, SARS-CoV-2, has caused over 3.2 million confirmed 27 cases and 220,000 deaths between January and April 2020. Although the last pandemic of respiratory 28 disease of viral origin swept the globe only a decade ago, the way science operates and responds to 29 current events has experienced a paradigm shift in the interim. The scientific community has 30 responded rapidly to the COVID-19 pandemic, releasing over 16,000 COVID-19 related scientific 31 articles within 4 months of the first confirmed case, of which at least 6,000 were hosted by preprint 32 servers. We focused our analysis on bioRxiv and medRxiv, two growing preprint servers for biomedical 33 research, investigating the attributes of COVID-19 preprints, their access and usage rates, 34 characteristics of their sharing on online platforms, and the relationship between preprints and their 35 published articles. Our data provides evidence for increased scientific and public engagement (COVID-36 19 preprints are accessed and distributed at least 15 times more than non-COVID-19 preprints) and 37 changes in journalistic practice with reference to preprints. We also find evidence for changes in 38 preprinting and publishing behaviour: COVID-19 preprints are shorter, with fewer panels and tables, 39 and reviewed faster. Our results highlight the unprecedented role of preprints and preprint servers in 40 the dissemination of COVID-19 science, and the likely long-term impact of the pandemic on the 41 scientific publishing landscape. 42 43 44 45 46 47 48 49 50 51 52 53 54The first quarter of 2020 has been defined by the COVID-19 outbreak, which has escalated to 55 pandemic status, and caused over 3.2 million cases and 220,000 deaths within 4 months of the first 56 reported case [1,2]. The causative pathogen was rapidly identified as a novel virus within the family 57Coronaviridae and was named severe acute respiratory syndrome coronavirus 2 (or 'SARS-CoV-2') [3]. 58 Although multiple coronaviruses are ubiquitous among humans and cause only mild disease, 59 epidemics of newly emerging coronaviruses were previously observed in SARS coronavirus in 2002 [4] 60 and Middle East respiratory syndrome (MERS) coronavirus in 2012 [5]. The unprecedented extent and 61 rate of spread of COVID-19 has created a critical global health emergency and academic communities 62 have raced to actively respond through research developments. 63 Research developments have traditionally been communicated via published journal articles or 64 conference presentations. Traditional scientific publishing involves the submission of manuscripts to 65 an individual journal, which then organises peer review. Authors often conduct additional experiments 66or analyses to address the reviewers' concerns in one or more revisions. Even after this lengthy 67 process is concluded, almost half of submissions are rejected and require re-submission to a different ...

Publishing volumes in major databases related to Covid-19

“…Our analysis and data mining of two major citation databases indicates that 23,634 unique documents related to Covid-19 were published between January 1 and June 30, 2020. Fraser et al (2020) also indicate that thousands of preprints have been published, accounting for roughly one third of the total volume of published papers related to Covid-19 in the January 1 to June 30 period. This sheer volume of papers related to a single topic may be unprecedented.…”

Open Science Saves Lives: Lessons from the COVID-19 Pandemic

“…For instance, major publishers such as Elsevier (The Lancet, Cell, ...) [18] and Springer Nature (Scientific Reports, Nature, ...) [19] have made newly written COVID-19 related articles freely accessible to the public (Open Access). Furthermore, authors and particularly medical researchers have shared their preprints more systematically than in previous pandemics [20] and reviews have been posted on external platforms (e.g., Pubpeer [21]). Specific initiatives, such as OpenSAFELY [22], have emerged to make data available to researchers while complying with the legislation regulating the use of medical data.…”

The Pandemic Penalty: The gendered effects of COVID-19 on scientific productivity

“…However, a growing number of academics make their submitted or in-progress manuscripts available on preprint servers (Penfold & Polka, 2020), making it possible to measure the pandemic's effect on preprint submissions in real time. Preliminary evidence also suggests a growing importance for preprints during the pandemic, as there is a high demand for rapid research to understand COVID-19 (Fraser et al, 2020).…”