The Risks of Preprints During a Pandemic
If you’ve been keeping up with Covid-19 related news over the past year, you will probably remember a time in the spring of 2020 when now former President Trump began recommending all sorts of unverified “cures” or “treatments” for coronavirus. One such instance was seen after the White House acquired a study regarding “unscientific claims about the benefits of chloroquine,” and former President Trump began promoting this medication, often used to combat malaria, as a treatment for Covid-19 (Preiser & Preiser 2020). These claims were quickly contested by other studies and sparked quite the controversy.
Within the scientific community these types of unverified publications are not uncommon, especially through the use of preprint servers. These websites allow for rapid distribution of scientific papers that have yet to be peer-reviewed. While many in the scientific community are aware that preprint literature should be “treated with a healthy scepticism, until verified by peer review,” this is not widely known to the public (Smyth, et al 2020).
“The Public doesn’t always know the difference between a peer-reviewed journal and… a preprint server — if it looks like academic research then it can be really difficult for someone to spot what’s high quality and what isn’t,” (Pool 2021).
In 2020, the preprint sites, medRxiv and bioRxiv, found a huge increase in submissions directly related to the Covid-19 pandemic. And while it has been very important to the scientific community to disseminate information as quickly as possible, more members of the public, including journalists and government officials, have also been seeking out these scientific studies. It is important to note that, “exposing scientific content to the public before it has been peer-reviewed by experts increases the risk it will be misunderstood,” (Barbour 2020). Recently, we have seen these misunderstandings being presented to the public as fact, as seen in the example regarding the Trump administration, creating an epidemic of ‘fake news’ during the pandemic.
Publish, Then Review
Scholarly publishing recognizes the need to avoid this spread of ‘fake news’ while also keeping up with the rapid need for access to research within the scientific community. One possible way of doing so would be to further utilize the “‘crowd-sourced’ peer review” process that is available through preprint servers (Smyth, et al 2020). eLife, an open access science journal, has begun focusing on a model they have deemed “publish, then review” in which they will only review papers that have already been posted to preprint servers. They will focus their efforts on posting public reviews of these preprints online. Many think that this method can cohabitate with the traditional peer review process. However, Professor Detlef Weigel, eLife deputy editor, “anticipates that within the next ‘two years or so’, a public preprint review will become the default” (Pool 2021). These rapid reviews can help the public in their search for information.
Financial Concerns
While the industry as a whole understands the need for quick and easy access to scientific studies, the problem of funding is on the forefront of this change. Scholarly publishing may come under pressure as economies struggle as a result of the ongoing pandemic (Callaway 2020). In response to Covid-19, “Publishers, service providers and those in research support have proactively taken steps to offer more support around peer review,” (Pool 2021). And while this support is much needed during these difficult times, it is unlikely that the same amount of support will become the norm. Once this funding has been exhausted, the industry will need to find new ways to support rapid peer review in the wake of Covid-19 and beyond.
References
Barbour, V 2020, ‘Science publishing has opened up during the coronavirus pandemic. It won’t be easy to keep it that way’, The Conversation, viewed 12 February 2021,
Callaway, E 2020, ‘The Covid-19 Crisis Could Permanently Change Scientific Publishing’, Nature, Vol 582, pp 167–169
Mudditt, A 2021, ‘Emerging from the Pandemic: The Future of Work is Now’, The Scholarly Kitchen, viewed 12 February 2021,
Pool, R 2021, ‘Peer review, preprints and a pandemic’, Research Information, viewed 12 February 2021, <https://www.researchinformation.info/feature/peer-review-preprints-and-pandemic>
Preiser W, Preiser R 2020, ‘Academic publishing in pandemic times’, South African Journal of Science, Vol 116, №9/10
Smyth, AR, Rawlinson, C, & Jenkins, G 2020, ‘Preprint servers: a ‘rush to publish’ or ‘just in time delivery’ for science?’, Thorax, Vol 75, No 7, pp 532–533
