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Preprints with The Lancet : joining online research discussion platforms

2018; Elsevier BV; Volume: 391; Issue: 10139 Linguagem: Inglês

10.1016/s0140-6736(18)31125-5

1474-547X

Sabine Kleinert, Richard Horton,

Pharmaceutical industry and healthcare

From June, 2018, the Lancet family of journals are starting a 6-month trial in collaboration with the freely accessible preprint platform SSRN, which has been part of Elsevier since May, 2016. With this pilot, we are interested to see whether health and medical researchers are ready for this form of sharing work early in the research or publication process. As defined by the Committee on Publication Ethics (COPE), “a preprint is a scholarly manuscript posted by the author(s) in an openly accessible platform, usually before or in parallel with the peer review process”.1Committee on Publication Ethics Discussion document on preprints.https://publicationethics.org/files/u7140/COPE_Preprints_Mar18.pdfDate: March, 2018Date accessed: May 14, 2018Google Scholar Authors of all research papers submitted to any Lancet family journal, including EBioMedicine and EClinicalMedicine, will be asked at submission whether they would like their paper to be posted to a dedicated area of SSRN called Preprints with The Lancet—an opt-in option that is free and that all co-authors have to agree to. If the corresponding author confirms that all authors agree and opts in, we will transfer the paper and its meta-data to SSRN for their initial checks and for classification before an additional check by a Lancet editor. The initial checks will be the usual SSRN checks and, in addition, checks that the funding source and declaration of interests are included, and if the submission is a trial, that there is a trial registration number. Our editor will check whether the trial has been registered prospectively and whether the authors mention ethical approval or why the research is exempted from ethical review board approval. A second possible route of submission to Preprints with The Lancet would be through SSRN's submission site directly, with the same checks applied as above. These preprint papers are not peer reviewed and the editorial checks are for transparency and appropriateness only. Preprints can describe ongoing research or research that is at submission stage. So, what is the purpose of posting on a preprint server? In our view, preprints are primarily intended for research use, similar to conference abstracts or presentations and intra-institutional discussions of research projects. By using the online environment, authors widen the opportunity for receiving comments on their work by other researchers with the goal of an improved final peer-reviewed publication and for exchange of research areas with the future potential for collaboration. Preprints should not be used for clinical decision making or reporting of research findings to a lay audience without indicating that this is preliminary research that has not been peer reviewed. What will the Lancet journals do once a paper has been posted on Preprints with The Lancet? The posted papers will not be treated differently from those by authors who have not chosen this preprint option. Authors who opt to post on the preprint server might want to take the comments their papers have received into account when revising for publication in the Lancet journals or in any other peer-reviewed journal. They should disclose that a version of the paper is on a preprint server at any subsequent submission to a journal. Most journals now allow prior or concomitant posting at preprint servers. Once a final version of a preprint paper is peer reviewed and published and becomes part of the scientific evidence as the version of record, the authors should link the preprint to the published paper. We will facilitate such linkage for any papers published in Lancet journals. The important steps of thorough peer review and experienced editorial scrutiny and guidance, together with putting research findings into a wider context and highlighting implications for clinical practice, will make the final published Article at the Lancet family of journals very different from the preprint version. Adding this value and ensuring accurate, honest, complete, transparent, and useful presentation of research data are the important roles of journals and publishers. Preprints have a long history in physics, mathematics, and, more recently, social sciences and biological fields, for example, through the arXiv or bioRxiv preprint servers, respectively. Medicine and health have been lagging behind, but there are now emerging discussions on medical preprints.2Maslove DM Medical preprints—a debate worth having.JAMA. 2018; 319: 443-444Crossref PubMed Scopus (34) Google Scholar, 3Peiperl L on behalf of the PLOS Medicine EditorsPreprints in medical research: progress and principles.PLoS Med. 2018; 15: e1002563Crossref PubMed Scopus (18) Google Scholar For example, COPE has published a discussion document highlighting the landscape of preprints with recommendations for journals, publishers, preprint platforms, and authors.1Committee on Publication Ethics Discussion document on preprints.https://publicationethics.org/files/u7140/COPE_Preprints_Mar18.pdfDate: March, 2018Date accessed: May 14, 2018Google Scholar Our preprint trial will be a first attempt to establish whether there is an appetite in the medical research community for obtaining feedback on ongoing or submitted research in the form of preprints, and whether such posting is a useful step in the research and publishing process. We will evaluate and review this pilot project after 6 months. In the meantime, we welcome any feedback or comments at [email protected] For more information on Preprints with The Lancet see https://www.thelancet.com/preprints For more information on Preprints with The Lancet see https://www.thelancet.com/preprints We declare no competing interests. The impact of preprint on media reporting of scienceWe note with interest that The Lancet has begun a trial of preprint submissions (June 23, p 2482).1 At the Science Media Centre we appreciate the potential benefits of preprint to the research process, but we are concerned about possible unforeseen effects on the public's understanding of science. Full-Text PDF