Comment on:
The following comment refers to this/these guideline(s)
Guideline 13
Providing public access to research results
As a rule, researchers make all results available as part of scientific/academic discourse. In specific cases, however, there may be reasons not to make results publicly available (in the narrower sense of publication, but also in a broader sense through other communication channels); this decision must not depend on third parties. Researchers decide autonomously – with due regard for the conventions of the relevant subject area – whether, how and where to disseminate their results. If it has been decided to make results available in the public domain, researchers describe them clearly and in full. Where possible and reasonable, this includes making the research data, materials and information on which the results are based, as well as the methods and software used, available and fully explaining the work processes. Software programmed by researchers them- selves is made publicly available along with the source code. Researchers provide full and correct information about their own preliminary work and that of others.
Explanations:
In the interest of transparency and to enable research to be referred to and reused by others, whenever possible researchers make the research data and principal materials on which a publication is based available in recognised archives and repositories in accordance with the FAIR principles (Findable, Accessible, Interoperable, Reusable). Restrictions may apply to public availability in the case of patent applications. If self-developed research software is to be made available to third parties, an appropriate licence is provided.
In line with the principle of “quality over quantity”, researchers avoid split- ting research into inappropriately small publications. They limit the repetition of content from publications of which they were (co-)authors to that which is necessary to enable the reader to understand the context. They cite results previously made publicly available unless, in exceptional cases, this is deemed unnecessary by the general conventions of the discipline.
Guideline 15
Publication medium
Authors select the publication medium carefully, with due regard for its quality and visibility in the relevant field of discourse. Researchers who assume the role of editor carefully select where they will carry out this activity. The scientific/academic quality of a contribution does not depend on the medium in which it is published.
Explanations:
In addition to publication in books and journals, authors may also consider academic repositories, data and software repositories, and blogs. A new or unknown publication medium is evaluated to assess its seriousness.
A key criterion to selecting a publication medium is whether it has established guidelines on good research practice.
Publication of scientific results in preprints
In accordance with Guideline 13, researchers take responsibility for how to publicise their research results. In doing so, they carefully select the publication medium in accordance with Guideline 15. Publishing preprints is one possible form of publication, involving a persistent identifier and ensuring long-term availability.
By general definition, preprints are academic publications that appear before a peer review has been carried out or without such a review being conducted at all. Preprints can be quality-assessed by peers at a later stage. There are varying interpretations of the term “preprint” across disciplines, and discipline-specific differences in the number of preprints that are subsequently (re)published in a journal.
Preprints not only speed up the publication process, they can also be a good way for researchers – especially early career researchers – to make their results available to the research community early on, thereby enabling them to obtain feedback more quickly.
They are usually published on so-called preprint servers or online repositories set up specifically for this purpose. These can be either cross-disciplinary (e.g. arXiv) or discipline-specific (e.g. bioRxiv, SocArXiv and PsyArXiv). In addition, there are regional repositories or preprint servers that are linked to certain funding organisations, publishers or journals. The publication of preprints is more established in some fields of research than in others. Sharing preprints is already common practice in the natural and life sciences such as physics, mathematics, computer science, quantitative biology and psychology, as well as economics.
Please note the following:
When publishing preprints, researchers should take care to find a suitable server or repository that meets the necessary standards and is actively used in their research community. In addition, authors should ensure their preprints have a licence so as to transparently grant other researchers certain rights of subsequent use. Some preprint servers such as EarthArXiv provide specific instructions for marking a publication as a preprint: one of the conditions for submitting a manuscript is that authors include a note on the cover page or in the header to identify it as a preprint.
The use of preprints as academic references has been the subject of intense debate. It is now widely recognised that preprints are academic sources that can be evaluated and referenced in research work. When citing and referencing, the source should be named correctly, and if necessary an explanation should be provided as to why the selected version is cited. In some disciplines there are guidelines for referencing preprints: for example, the recommendations of the ICMJE (International Committee of Medical Journal Editors) state that ‘when a preprint article has been subsequently published in a peer-reviewed journal, authors should cite the subsequent published article rather than the preprint article whenever appropriate’.
This article is based on
The comment belongs to the following categories:
GL13 (General) , GL15 (General)
Keywords:
public accesspublicationreference