New Academic Publishing Models: Understanding Preprints -Invited talk presented before the participants of LIS Refresher Course(RC) at the UGC-HRDC, University of Mysore on 11th Sept 2023.

1. New Academic Publishing Models:
Understanding Preprints
Dr. Vasantha Raju N.
Principal (in-charge) & College Librarian
Government First Grade College-Talakadu
vasanthrz@gmail.com
11th September 2023
Invited Talk
Refresher Course in LIS, UGC-HRDC
University of Mysore

2. Presentation Focus
2
Scholarly Communication-
Historical Development
Understanding Preprints
Open Peer Review &
Overlay Journals

3. What is Scholarly Communication?
3
Scholarly communication (SC) is a cyclical process in which
content is generated, reviewed, disseminated, acquired,
preserved, discovered, accessed, and assimilated for the
advancement of scholarship.
The assimilation can potentially lead to generation of new
content and thus start a new iteration of the process (or
lifecycle).
- Adrian K. Ho

4. Scholarly Communication Life Cycle
4
*Depending on the mode of dissemination, some components may not exist.
Source: https://ir.lib.uwo.ca/cgi/viewcontent.cgi?article=1019&context=wlpres

5. Historical Developments of Scholarly
Communication
◎In the beginning of the emergence of scholarly journals,
learned societies have played crucial role in its development.
◎Journal des Scavans – was the first academic journal which
was Published on 5th January in 1665 in Paris
◎The Philosophical Transactions of the Royal Society- was the
second academic journals released on 6th March 1665 in
England
◎Ulrich’s Web Directory has listed More than 30000 journals
by the end of 2019

6. Scholarly Communication Channels
Scholarly Communication is disseminated or exchanged
via formal and informal channels of communication
Formal communication channels
● Journals, proceedings, databases, books, etc.,
Informal communication channels
● Listservs, invisible colleges, preprints, conversations, etc.,

7. Academic Journals
(Academic) Journals are regarded as the main spike in
the scholarly communication process or cycle.
( Academic or Scholarly) Journals are periodicals
carrying accounts of research published after due peer
review process rather than journalistically based
magazines
Source: https://www.stm-assoc.org/2015_02_20_STM_Report_2015.pdf

8. What Constitutes a (Academic) Journal
◎Should have an ISSN number
◎Should consists of Peer-Reviewed contents
◎Should be Published on a regular basis
◎The contents should be relevant and readable for an
international audience, and
◎Should have publications ethics and publication malpractice
statement
- UNESCO Open Access for
Researchers Scholarly
Communication Course Module

9. Major Functions of Academic Journals
Mark Ware & Michael Mabe (2009) have identified four
major functions of a journal, they are:
 Registration: Establishing the author’s precedence and ownership of
an idea
 Dissemination: Communicating the findings to its intended audience
 Certification: Ensuring quality control through peer review and
rewarding authors
 Archival Record: Preserving a fixed version of the paper for future
reference and citation

10. Peer-Review
◎Peer Review is fundamental to scholarly communication and specifically
to journals. It is the process of subjecting an author’s manuscript to the
scrutiny of others who are experts in the same field, prior to publication
in a journal.
◎Peer Review helps to determine the validity, significance and originality
of the work
◎helps to improve the manuscripts by identifying the gaps associated with
the manuscripts
◎Enable discussion among authors, reviewers and editors

11. Peer-Review Process Life Cycle
Source: https://editorresources.taylorandfrancisgroup.com/peer-review-introduction/

12. Limitations of (Traditional) Journal Publishing
System
◎ Lack of Enough of Peer-Reviewers
◎ Biased/ Slow Process of Peer Review
◎ Publishers Monopoly & Profits (Pay walled
Contents)
◎ APCs and Open Access Journals- Predatory Practices
(journals)
◎ Limitations in Bibliodiversity
◎ Global Health Emergencies (e.g., Covid-19)
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13. Traditional Peer Review Process
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https://asapbio.org/wp-content/uploads/2021/11/Screenshot-
2021-11-24-at-11.55.21.png

14. 14
COVID-19 has created an unprecedented global health crisis.
Researchers across the world were trying hard to find vaccines or
drugs for this highly infectious disease. As a result there was a
drastic increase in number of scientific publications on this
subject.
Researchers were looking for disseminating their research as quickly
as possible and help the global research community on coronavirus
to find potential drugs or vaccine as early as possible. So scientists
were depositing/publishing their scientific results through
preprints which was like never seen before. This was pushed
traditional publishers to speed up the peer review process
and also provide open access to COVID-19 literature

15. Impact of COVID-19 on Scholarly Communications
Source: Miller, R. C., & Tsai, C. J. (2020). Scholarly Publishing in the Wake of COVID-19.

16. “A preprint is a version of a scientific manuscript
posted on a public server prior to formal peer
review. As soon as it’s posted, your preprint
becomes a permanent part of the scientific
record, citable with its own unique DOI”

17. Distributions of COVID-19 Related Research Across
Different Publication Platforms
Source: https://app.dimensions.ai/

18. Growth of Preprint Submission Practice Over the Years
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https://europepmc.org/Preprints

19. History of preprints
1961
1991
1994
2001
2013
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=1cCr9Av6LRc
https://www.nature.com/articles/s42254-021-00360-z

20. Examples of Preprint Servers

22. Benefits of Preprint Servers
Source: https://plos.org/open-science/preprints/

23. Benefits of Posting Preprints
Source: https://plos.org/open-science/preprints/

24. Difference Between Preprints and Traditional Scholarly Publications
Source: Vlasschaert, C., Topf, J. M., & Hiremath, S. (2020). Proliferation of Papers and Preprints
During the Coronavirus Disease 2019 Pandemic: Progress or Problems With Peer Review?.
Advances in Chronic Kidney Disease.

25. 25
Traditional
Journal and
Preprint
Publishing
Process
https://asapbio.org/preprint-info

26. Searching for preprints...
see also: https://tinyurl.com/searchenginecomparison (tab G)
Dimensions 2,250,446
EuropePMC 149,687
LENS 251,525
OpenAIRE 2,402,274
OSF preprint search 2,274,361
ScienceOpen 1,808,102
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=1cCr9Av6LRc

27. Coverage of preprints in search engines
https://tinyurl.com/searchenginecomparison (tab G)
Jeroen Bosman, Utrecht University Library
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=1cCr9Av6LRc

28. Can article posted as preprint can be submitted to a peer
reviewed Journals?
• Yes!
the same work posted as preprint can also be submitted for
peer reviewed journal.
DIRECT TRANSFER FROM MEDRXIV TO JOURNALS (M2J)
ASAPbio (Accelerating Science and Publication in biology)
• https://asapbio.org/preprint-servers

29. Finding Journal Policies on Preprints
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30. Indian COVID-19 Preprint Submission Practice Study Results- Our Own Study
A B
https://doi.org/10.1101/2023.02.14.23285870;

31. COVID-19 Preprints Published in Journals
https://doi.org/10.1101/2023.02.14.23285870;

32. Indian Preprints Publications in Journals
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https://doi.org/10.1101/2023.02.14.23285870;

33. Increased Citations and Attentions for Preprints
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https://www.nature.com/nature-index/news/preprints-boost-article-citations-and-mentions

34. Motivations for preprinting COVID-19 research works
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Rzayeva, N., Henriques, S. O., Pinfield, S., & Waltman, L. (2023). The experiences of COVID-19 preprint authors: a survey of researchers about
publishing and receiving feedback on their work during the pandemic. PeerJ, 11, e15864.

35. Preprints are also not without Contraversy during this Pandemic
35

36. 36
The preprint surge in the time of health
crisis is altering the main spike of
scholarly communications and bringing
open peer review system to the main
stream as well as making scholarly
contents to be more open and available
for all without any restrictions

37. So What is the Future of Scholarly Communications
Emergence of Open Peer Review System
https://f1000research.com/
https://pubpeer.com/

38. Emergence of Overlay Journals
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An overlay journal is an open access, quality-assured
journal whose articles are held in one or more
repositories. An overlay journal does not host the
articles on the journal’s website but links back to the
relevant article in an open repository or preprint server.

39. India’s Draft 5th National Science, Technology, and Innovation Policy
https://dst.gov.in/draft-5th-national-science-technology...
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40. “
Video on Preprint
https://www.youtube.com/watch
?v=2zMgY8Dx9co&t=8s
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41. ◎ Publish/Deposit your research in open platforms such as
preprints
◎ Create awareness on the potential advantage of posting
preprints among teaching community
◎ Share Preprint related resources/ Tool Kits (e.g., ASAPbio
(Accelerating Science and Publication in biology)
◎ Share your research data through open data repository
platforms (e.g., figshare, Zenodo, dataverse, GitHub, etc.)
◎ Have your own ORCID and Other researcher ID (Google
Scholar Profile, Scopus Author ID, WoS Research ID)
◎ Encourage Open Science Policies at local/state /country level
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42. Thanks!
Any questions?
You can mail me at:
vasanthrz@gmail.com
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