The preprint debate: What are the issues?
Journal Title: Medical Journal Armed Forces - Year 2018, Vol 74, Issue 2
Abstract
The debate surrounding preprints is increasing. Preprint proponents claim that preprints are a way to shore up trust in academic publishing, that they provide an additional 'quality' screen prior to traditional peer review, that they can assist with the replication crisis plaguing science in part by making negative or contradictory results public, and that they speed up the publishing process because fundamental results can be presented early, serving as timely reports for the purposes of tenure or grant funding. Preprint skeptics and critics claim that preprints may represent a risk and a danger to quality-based academic publishing because they are documents that have not been carefully and thoroughly vetted prior to their release into the public domain. Thus, academics who cite invalid, poorly vetted, or false facts could cause harm, not unlike the unscholarly 'predatory' open access movement. Feedback on work from lesser-known groups, or on less glamorous topics, may be null or worse than from traditional peer review, annulling an initial key objective of preprints. Although there is no widespread empirical evidence or data yet regarding some of these issues, academics should be aware of the ideological, financial, and political tug-of-war taking place before deciding if they wish to publish their important findings as a preprint prior or simultaneous to submitting to a regular journal for peer review.
Authors and Affiliations
Jaime A. Teixeira da Silva
Keywords
Related Articles
- EP ID EP647049
- DOI 10.1016/j.mjafi.2017.08.002
- Views 52
- Downloads 0
Performance of Indian Diabetes Risk Score (IDRS) as screening tool for diabetes in an urban slum
Background: India is diabetic capital of world, with maximum number of diabetic patients. There is large burden of undetected diabetic cases in community. There is increasing risk of diabetes in urban slum, because of il...
Tuberculosis diagnosis in resource limited settings
The scourge of tuberculosis (TB), it being first documented in India and China some 3300 and 2300 years ago, respectively, continues globally.1 Towards the common aim of ending the global tuberculosis epidemic, the End T...
Effect of wrist cooling on aerobic and anaerobic performance in elite sportsmen
Background: Body cooling has been used to increase sporting performance and enhance recovery. Several studies have reported improvement in exercise capacities using forearm and hand cooling or only hand cooling. Wrist co...
Giant omental lipoma in an elderly female patient
A lipoma is a benign non-invasive encapsulated mesenchymal tumour that resembles normal fat. It is ubiquitous and the commonest tumour to affect soft tissues. Although a lipoma may arise in any tissue containing fat, ome...
Ending AIDS: The 90–90–90 strategy
From its beginning as a cluster of cases, the human immunodeficiency virus (HIV) epidemic revealed a startling propensity to spread between sub-populations and across geographic boundaries. Within the first decade itself...