ISMTE Singapore, Michael Wise , March 2018

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COPE’s view on Preprints
Michael Wise, COPE Council (Membership
Committee Chair)
Computer Science & Software Engineering
University of Western Australia

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COPE:12,000+ members, 100+
countries
• Goal is the promote integrity in research and
its publication
– Support via services, e.g. Flow charts
– Leadership and a Neutral Voice
• Current membership are journal editors and
publishers. Associate members
• New membership category specifically for
editors and editorial services
• Pilot project exploring whether COPE can be
of assistance to institutions

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Why Preprints? – The Upside
• Authors
– Quick due to minimal checks by server
• Can have role establishing precedence
– Cheap, often free
– Comments from readers can be useful for
improving the paper
• Journals
– Papers of interest can be invited to submit

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Pre-Prints Challenges
• Authors
– Can be scooped
• But then trail public. Theft via peer review less
visible, for example
– Lack of clarity about whether journals will
accept MS that was pre-print

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Preprints Challenges
• Journals
– License for preprint server may clash with
license used by a journal
– Status of preprint post journal publication
• Many preprint servers will not delete papers, so
journal article and pre-print will coexist
– Status of preprint if ethical issues found
with journal paper
– Whether or not to accept them as references

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Ethical Questions
• Are preprints publications?
– “The action of making something publicly
known; public notification or announce-ment”
(OED)
– May have Digital Object Identifier (DOI)
– BUT often first outing, less polished
• If not a publication, do they establish precedence?
– Generally yes, but depends on area

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Ethical Questions
• What happens after publication?
– Linkage/citation (for transparency)
– Handling of ethical issues found proven by
journal (EoC/Retraction)
– Can preprint evolve after publication by
journal or should it be frozen at that point?

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So what to do?
• Authors
– Do your homework and find out
what your intended venue permits
• Journals
– Have a policy whether to accept
preprints, under what constraints,
etc, and ensure that it’s clear at
the point of submission
– Citation referencing
• Preprints generally, not just
submissions

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So what to do?
• Preprint Platforms
– Make clear that there is no peer review
– Make clear the level of screening
– Licensing
– Permanency

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Acknowledgements
• COPE committee which created the
underlying Discussion Document, that can
be found at:
https://publicationethics.org/resources/discussi
on-documents.

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Questions?