Are Preprints Becoming the New Norm in Biology? Not So Fast

Courtesy of Prachee Avasthi

Zen Faulkes prides himself on using new ways to disseminate his scientific findings. Where some biologists may feel beholden to publish through traditional scientific journals, Mr. Faulkes, a biology professor at the University of Texas-Rio Grande Valley, does not.

So when a conversation among biologists about “preprints,” or papers uploaded to open-access websites before undergoing peer review, picked up steam last month, Mr. Faulkes was all ears. With the help of the hashtag #ASAPbio, Mr. Faulkes followed the action at the two-day Accelerating Science and Publication in Biology meeting, which took place just outside Washington, D.C.

The attendees, including scientists, university administrators, and funding-agency officials, discussed how increased use of preprints in their discipline, something that has been commonplace for decades in physics, could speed up scientific discovery and allow for broader feedback than the traditional peer-review process.

Mr. Faulkes, who often tweets and blogs about his work, jumped on board, publishing a paper on a biology preprint server, bioRxiv, which is maintained by Cold Spring Harbor Laboratory. He waited anxiously for feedback and reaction.

And the response was?

“Crickets,” Mr. Faulkes said in an interview.

Granted, Mr. Faulkes didn’t promote his paper on social media — as a sort of experiment, he said, to see what kind of web traffic the work alone would attract. In doing so, Mr. Faulkes got some firsthand insight into the question many others have asked: Does posting preprints make sense for rank-and-file scientists and young researchers, who need to rack up peer-reviewed publications for their CVs, or is it really only an option for researchers who have already made a name for themselves? (Three biologists with Nobel Prizes under their belts have uploaded work to the same website as Mr. Faulkes, as noted in a recent New York Times article that brought increased attention to the subject.)

If pre-prints are going to live up to hype, they have to have benefits for scientists who AREN’T superstars: https://t.co/u52fKW2qfk ICYMI

— Zen Faulkes (@DoctorZen) March 17, 2016

“If I post a preprint? So what?” Mr. Faulkes said. “If someone with a Nobel Prize posts a preprint? Oh! Look! This is the hot, new thing in scientific publishing.”

Mr. Faulkes, whose research focuses on crustaceans, admitted that some of his skepticism stemmed from crabbiness over the lack of attention to his preprint, especially when compared with those posted by what the Times described as august scholars gone “rogue.” But he’s not alone in his frustration.

Interesting article on #ASAPbio. https://t.co/FpxRkAbtny. Does it only work for established scientists?

— Elizabeth Little (@lizzycharleston) March 15, 2016

Hoping more will read/weigh in on this - established scientists have more risk tolerance and should lead. #ASAPbio https://t.co/m81u7l3jqK

— Patrick Short (@Patrick_J_Short) February 15, 2016

Prachee Avasthi, an assistant professor at the University of Kansas Medical Center, just started her own lab last summer, and she has decided to play by her own rules. For example, when the time comes to publish, her lab’s findings will be uploaded to the web as preprints while concurrently seeking publication in a traditional journal.

“Being more secretive about your data is counterproductive,” she said. “I have always been in favor of spreading your data as much as you can and getting as much feedback as possible, and this is a really great mechanism for this.”

Stumbled on paper I already read as preprint. Paper feels like old news. When this happens to more people, might help preprints catch on.

— Prachee Avasthi (@PracheeAC) March 17, 2016

However, Ms. Avasthi knows that some of her students are more hesitant to embrace preprints, and she understands their concerns.

If young biologists want a shot at progressing along the traditional tenure track, the culture of the discipline demands that they have peer-reviewed articles to show, Ms. Avasthi says, and she remembers feeling that pressure in the job market herself not so long ago.

“Where you publish is a strong factor in all of these critical career decisions, and it’s impossible to ignore that fact in the current culture,” she said.

That’s why next to no one is uploading their work strictly as preprints, she said, noting that the papers uploaded to bioRxiv by the trio of Nobel Prize-winning biologists had already been completed and were ready to submit to traditional journals.

“People who are submitting preprints at this point are not doing so to the exclusion of a journal,” she said. “And I don’t know when, if ever, that will happen in this field.”

‘A Real Impact’

As James Fraser, an assistant professor at the University of California at San Francisco, put it at the February meeting, in a phrase picked up by the Times, publishing in preprints or journals is not about having “beer or tacos”; it’s about “beer AND tacos.”

But for young scientists, it’s about fear. “Fear that they won’t get that tenure, they won’t get that job, they won’t get that promotion, or they’ll get scooped, and their findings will be less publishable, and it won’t get into as high of a journal,” Ms. Avasthi said.

Jessica Polka, a coordinator of the February ASAPbio meeting, agreed that up-and-coming scientists are plagued by fear when it comes to uploading open-access preprints. Ms. Polka, a postdoctoral research fellow at Harvard Medical School, said there is a real concern that preprints won’t be seen as a measure of productivity among biologists, and therefore won’t be helpful in landing jobs or grants.

Ms. Polka said she was encouraged, however, by conversations at the conference with representatives of the National Institutes of Health and other groups that award large grants. Those entities seem to be receptive to the idea, she said.

But there’s still a lot to be done to move the needle and encourage the biology community to accept preprints as valid.

“I see this as a really tangible and feasible goal,” she said. “This can improve the speed and touch a lot of other issues that biology faces. It can make a real impact.”

For students who are interested but unsure, Ms. Avasthi advises taking the leap. She has also seen firsthand, in her own department, just how many senior biologists don’t know preprints are an option. She recalled an episode after February’s conference in which she raised the subject in a faculty meeting, and only one other person in a room of more than 20 had ever heard of preprints. She encourages young researchers to introduce their own advisers to preprints “and the potential benefits.”

“It’s just so important to make people aware; people can make their own decisions,” she said. “But having them know it’s an option and understand this is a feasible thing, that’s really important.”