Abstract
Over recent years, the research community has been increasingly using preprint servers to share manuscripts that are not yet peer-reviewed. Even if it enables quick dissemination of research findings, this practice raises several challenges in publication ethics and integrity. In particular, preprints have become an important source of information for stakeholders interested in COVID19 research developments, including traditional media, social media, and policy makers. Despite caveats about their nature, many users can still confuse pre-prints with peer-reviewed manuscripts. If unconfirmed but already widely shared first-draft results later prove wrong or misinterpreted, it can be very difficult to “unlearn” what we thought was true. Complexity further increases if unconfirmed findings have been used to inform guidelines. To help achieve a balance between early access to research findings and its negative consequences, we formulated five recommendations: (a) consensus should be sought on a term clearer than ‘pre-print’, such as ‘Unrefereed manuscript’, “Manuscript awaiting peer review” or ‘’Non-reviewed manuscript”; (b) Caveats about unrefereed manuscripts should be prominent on their first page, and each page should include a red watermark stating ‘Caution—Not Peer Reviewed’; (c) pre-print authors should certify that their manuscript will be submitted to a peer-review journal, and should regularly update the manuscript status; (d) high level consultations should be convened, to formulate clear principles and policies for the publication and dissemination of non-peer reviewed research results; (e) in the longer term, an international initiative to certify servers that comply with good practices could be envisaged.
Highlights
Over recent years, the research community has been increasingly using preprint servers to share manuscripts that have not yet been peer-reviewed, enabling quick dissemination of research findings, and in some cases to obtain peer feedback to improve the final version submitted to a journal [1]
Ravinetto et al BMC Med Ethics (2021) 22:106 it “without waiting for publication in scientific journals”, and as soon as the information “is quality-controlled for release” [5]. These recommendations have an inherent conflict, as the quality control of the peer-review process is managed by the scientific journals whose publication timelines should not be waited for
A cross-sectional study of preprint policies among the 100 clinical journals with the highest impact factors showed that 86% of journals allow for submitted articles to be previously posted as preprints, making researchers less concerned that posting a manuscript on a preprint server will disqualify it from further publication [1]
Summary
The research community has been increasingly using preprint servers to share manuscripts that have not yet been peer-reviewed, enabling quick dissemination of research findings, and in some cases to obtain peer feedback to improve the final version submitted to a journal [1]. Background Over recent years, the research community has been increasingly using preprint servers to share manuscripts that have not yet been peer-reviewed, enabling quick dissemination of research findings, and in some cases to obtain peer feedback to improve the final version submitted to a journal [1].
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