Swimming up the (main)stream
Universal peer-reviewed acceptance of preprints isn’t a done deal, Dr. Polka said. Journals are tussling with how to handle these papers. The Lancet clearly states that preprints don’t constitute prior publication and are welcome. The New England Journal of Medicine offers an uncontestable “no way.”
JAMA discourages submitting preprints, and will consider one only if the submitted version offers “meaningful new information” above what the preprint disseminated.
Cell Press has a slightly different take. They will consider papers previously posted on preprint services, but the policy applies only to the original submitted version of the paper. “We do not support posting of revisions that respond to editorial input and peer review or the final published version to preprint servers,” the policy notes.
In an interview, Deborah Sweet, PhD, the group’s vice president of editorial, elaborated on the policy. “In our view, one of the most important purposes of preprint posting is to gather feedback from the scientific community before a formal submission to a journal,” she said. “The ‘original submission’ term in our guidelines refers to the first version of the paper submitted to [Cell Press], which could include revisions made in response to community feedback on a preprint. After formal submission, we think it is most appropriate to incorporate and represent the value of the editorial and peer-review evaluation process in the final published journal article so that is clearly identifiable as the version of record.”
bioRxiv has made substantial inroads with dozens of other peer-reviewed journals. More than 100 – including a number of publications by EMBO Press and PLOS (Public Library of Science) – participate in bioRxiv’s B2J (BioRxiv-to-journal) direct-submission program.
With a few clicks, authors can transmit their bioRxiv manuscript files directly to these journals, without having to prepare separate submissions, Dr. Sweet said. Last year, Cell Press added two publications – Cell Reports and Structure – to the B2J program. “Once the paper is sent, it moves behind the scenes to the journal system and reappears as a formal submission,” she said. “In our process, before transferring the paper to the journal editors, authors have a chance to update the files (for example, to add a cover letter) and answer the standard questions that we ask, including ones about reviewer suggestions and exclusion requests. Once that step is done, the paper is handed over to the editorial team, and it’s ready to go for consideration in the same way as any other submission.”