In 2016, we introduced preprints and search.bioPreprint, then a newly minted HSLS-developed search engine for the immediate discovery of new biomedical research. Preprints are the research papers that authors post to a server before the formal peer-review process and publication in an academic journal. At that time, preprints had just started gaining traction among the research community. Things have dramatically changed in the past seven years; realizing the benefit of rapid dissemination of scientific findings, posting preprints is now becoming a common practice for researchers.
While speed is a well-known advantage of preprints, eliminating editorial peer assessment has raised concerns about scientific quality. Academic publishing relies on peer review to ensure that research articles are thoroughly examined for scientific quality, correctness, and validity.
To address this, platforms like Peer Community In, PREreview, and Review Commons have evolved to facilitate expert peer review of preprints outside of the regular journal peer-review procedure. PREreview (Post, Read, and Engage with preprint reviews) takes a unique approach to bolster the participation of researchers in the peer-reviewing process. It provides a centralized hub in which participants of scientific journal clubs can share their feedback about preprints with other groups. Recently eLife, another publishing platform, started publishing reviewed preprints.
While preprint peer reviews that combine the advantages of preprints with the scrutiny offered by peer review have started to appear, they are scattered across multiple websites, making it difficult for readers to locate them while reading preprints. Meet Sciety, which aggregates preprints and any accompanying commentary from throughout the web, and is independent from any journals, platforms, or preprint servers.
With Sciety, you can search your topic of interest directly. Sciety provides peer reviews for more than 23,000 preprints. Alternatively, use search.bioPreprint to discover a preprint you want to read, find its DOI number, then paste it into the Sciety search box. An example of a preprint peer review in Sciety is “Elevated brain-derived cell-free DNA among patients with first psychotic episode – a proof-of-concept study.”
Presently, only a fraction of preprints are peer-reviewed. However, as preprints gradually become more popular in the life sciences research community, it is hoped that more researchers will participate in the preprint peer-review process in the coming years. Reviewing preprints benefits authors by providing them with early feedback on their manuscripts, and early-career researchers benefit from the opportunity to develop their critical thinking and peer-review skills. Moreover, the scientific community benefits from access to scientists’ discussions about the latest discoveries. Therefore, preprint peer review is essential to the scientific research process, and its importance cannot be overstated.
~Ansuman Chattopadhyay