Preprints: An underutilized mechanism to accelerate outbreak science

Johansson, Michael A.; Reich, Nicholas G.; Meyers, Lauren Ancel; Lipsitch, Marc

We advocate 4 steps to improve the adoption of preprints and speed the dissemination of science in the context of outbreaks. First, scientists should promote preprints by posting them and choosing to submit manuscripts to journals that accept preprints; many journals have policies that explicitly allow preprint posting (tools for identifying these journals are provided by Jisc: http://www.sherpa.ac.uk/romeo/search.php and Wikipedia: https://en.wikipedia.org/ wiki/List_of_academic_journals_by_preprint_policy). Second, all publishers should endorse preprint posting for research related to outbreaks. This would send a clear signal to all scientists that preprints are integral to scientific communication and help nonscientists identify preprints as a distinct form of communication compared to peer-reviewed publications [1, [4] [5] [6] . Publishers should actively encourage or require preprint posting at the time of submission, driving adoption directly as Faculty of 1000 has for F1000Research. Third, preprint repositories and the scientific community should ensure that preprints contain appropriate content (e.g., maintaining ethics and privacy) and are readily identifiable as preprints, and that mechanisms exist to facilitate community input prior to or concurrent with peer review. These considerations can help reduce the risks of preprints and maximize their benefits. Fourth, universities and funders should recognize preprints together with peer-reviewed publications and citations as an important part of an investigator's track record, especially for any scientist involved in outbreak responses. The scientific community should not ask why preprints are posted during outbreaks, we should ask why they are not posted and make early posting the standard rather than the exception.