The evolving role of preprints in the dissemination of COVID-19 research and their impact on the science communication landscape

Fraser, Nicholas, Brierley, Liam ORCID: 0000-0002-3026-4723, Dey, Gautam, Polka, Jessica K, Palfy, Mate, Nanni, Federico and Coates, Jonathon Alexis (2021) The evolving role of preprints in the dissemination of COVID-19 research and their impact on the science communication landscape. PLOS BIOLOGY, 19 (4). e3000959-.

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Abstract

The world continues to face a life-threatening viral pandemic. The virus underlying the Coronavirus Disease 2019 (COVID-19), Severe Acute Respiratory Syndrome Coronavirus 2 (SARS-CoV-2), has caused over 98 million confirmed cases and 2.2 million deaths since January 2020. Although the most recent respiratory viral pandemic swept the globe only a decade ago, the way science operates and responds to current events has experienced a cultural shift in the interim. The scientific community has responded rapidly to the COVID-19 pandemic, releasing over 125,000 COVID-19-related scientific articles within 10 months of the first confirmed case, of which more than 30,000 were hosted by preprint servers. We focused our analysis on bioRxiv and medRxiv, 2 growing preprint servers for biomedical research, investigating the attributes of COVID-19 preprints, their access and usage rates, as well as characteristics of their propagation on online platforms. Our data provide evidence for increased scientific and public engagement with preprints related to COVID-19 (COVID-19 preprints are accessed more, cited more, and shared more on various online platforms than non-COVID-19 preprints), as well as changes in the use of preprints by journalists and policymakers. We also find evidence for changes in preprinting and publishing behaviour: COVID-19 preprints are shorter and reviewed faster. Our results highlight the unprecedented role of preprints and preprint servers in the dissemination of COVID-19 science and the impact of the pandemic on the scientific communication landscape.

Item Type:	Article
Uncontrolled Keywords:	Humans, Communication, Information Dissemination, Peer Review, Research, Biomedical Research, Publishing, Pandemics, Open Access Publishing, Preprints as Topic, COVID-19, SARS-CoV-2
Divisions:	Faculty of Health and Life Sciences Faculty of Health and Life Sciences > Institute of Population Health
Depositing User:	Symplectic Admin
Date Deposited:	22 Apr 2021 10:30
Last Modified:	18 Jan 2023 22:51
DOI:	10.1371/journal.pbio.3000959
Open Access URL:	http://doi.org/10.1371/journal.pbio.3000959
Related URLs:	Author Publisher
URI:	https://livrepository.liverpool.ac.uk/id/eprint/3120173