Most researchers have never seen
anything like this before.
A pressing, urgent need for the dissemination
of research results in a rapid fashion.
Even though scientists have been communicating primarily
through journal articles for many, many decades,
the peer review process, as we know it today
is actually relatively new.
The famous Watson and Crick paper that reported
the discovery of the structure of DNA was not externally
peer reviewed when it was published.
Albert Einstein retracted one of his papers
from a journal when they attempted to send it out
for external peer review, which he viewed as an insult.
Preprints are usually early drafts of scientific papers
that are shared online
so that information can be disseminated between researchers
prior to the completion of the journal peer review process.
During the COVID-19 pandemic, researchers are
posting preprints related to coronavirus
at a much higher rate suggesting
that the research community is becoming more familiar
in the biomedical sciences with the concept
and benefits of sharing their work early.
Many funders and institutions have recognized
the value of preprints particularly
when there is a public health emergency,
such as an outbreak like SARS, Zika or Ebola.
In the SARS outbreak, the majority of papers were published
in traditional journals only after the outbreak had ended.
And as a result they did not have
the same impact they could have on public health.
The process of journal publishing is slow relative
to the immediacy of an outbreak.
So this is the first time,
this COVID-19 outbreak is really the first time
that we're seeing the widespread use of preprints
during the public health emergency.
Sharing research results benefits,
not only the individual researcher
but the scientific community
and the general public at large.
By putting results out there,
where others can build off of them
and with appropriate credit
and start investigating new areas of research
is something that makes discovery
in science happen faster.
For example, studies that look at the persistence
or transmission of droplets
that occur in breathe
can be helpful for designing personal protective equipment
or understanding how healthcare workers
and others can protect themselves.
Many researchers use social media
and in particular Twitter to share
and discuss research findings, especially preprints
and other information that's distributed
in a less formal way.
On Twitter conversations on preprints
can happen very rapidly
and involve a flexible group of researchers
who all bring different perspectives to their conversation.
There is a kind of crowdsource community attention
on a paper and that's important
because by communicating publicly researchers broaden
the audience that they're speaking with,
they're not just putting something out
to a private Slack channel or discussing with their own labs
or speaking to the people who can afford
to be in the room at a conference,
they're sharing something openly with the whole world.
And there's also third-party sites
for preprints that provide commentary
and organized review or rapid review.
The concerns around preprints in a pandemic are amplified
by the intense media attention.
In this environment, any new findings are newsworthy
and so there's the potential for incorrect information
or information that turns out to be not robust
to be amplified and disseminated to the public.
Journalists or perhaps the readers might not be aware
of the provisional nature of preprints.
It's very important that we have peer review
to evaluate research that might be methodologically flawed
or to identify problematic science as much as possible.
The benefit of peer review is
that it is a very thorough process.
So there is always a danger that by trying to speed it up
there might be some compromises to the quality.
For example, a paper claiming uncanny sequence similarity
between coronavirus and HIV was posted
on the preprint server bio archive.
It garnered over 100 comments over the course of a few days
before being withdrawn by the authors voluntarily
within 48 hours.
So while this is an example
of potentially damaging use of a preprint server
to spread potentially harmful information,
it's also an example of the power of community commentary
to help correct the scientific record.
Some journals are changing their policies
and practices in response to the COVID-19 pandemic.
Because there's a demand
for peer reviewed information faster,
some journals are accelerating their peer review process
so that they can publish papers much faster
than they could normally.
Other journals that are traditionally publishing their work
behind paywalls have removed those restrictions
to enable anyone to read the research results.
It's especially important to be familiar
with what a preprint is,
how it's different from a journal article,
and to look for the opinion of experts
who are really familiar with the techniques
and the field of research in terms of interpreting
what it means for scientific discovery.
Researchers when talking to journalists need to be clear
about what a preprint is.
Journalists, I think also must convey
in their article information about what a preprint is.
Science progresses only as quickly as it can be shared
between researchers enabling those researchers
to communicate with one another
in more efficient ways can increase
the process of discovery.
Opening up the peer review process to incorporate comments
from readers that are outside
of the traditional reviewer pool can also diversify
the input into that peer review process.
So perhaps enabling a community comment
and encouraging community comment on preprint servers
can compliment general organized peer review
and make it even more robust.
My hope is that a silver lining of this pandemic is
that researchers will see new opportunities
to change the way that they communicate
to make it faster, more open and more efficient.