Search

Preprints have played an unprecedented role in disseminating COVID‐19‐related science results to the public. The study aims to elucidate the role of preprints during the COVID‐19 public health emergency (2020–2023) through a quantitative analysis of journal papers. Among the 247,854 COVID‐19‐related papers published in PubMed, 12,152 were initially released as preprints and were eventually published in 1,380 journals. This number is more than five times the 246 journals to which submissions can be made directly from bioRxiv through the B2J program. Journals with higher impact factors and Normalized Eigenfactor scores tend to publish a larger number of preprint‐derived articles. The proportion of preprints among PubMed papers was 0.049, but this varies significantly by journal. In the top 30 journals, most exceed this proportion, indicating that these journals are preferred by authors for submitting their work. These findings highlight the growing acceptance and impact of preprints in the scientific community, particularly in high‐impact journals. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

This study examines the relation between acceptance times in preprint publishing and journal publishing. Specifically, we investigated the association between a paper's posting time to bioRχiv, a preprints server, and journal articles' peer‐review and acceptance time for PLOS ONE. So far, of the total papers published in 1,626 academic journals, the average publication rate of those posted in bioRχiv is 40.67%. Meanwhile, PLOS ONE was the journal that published more papers. Analysis of peer‐review and acceptance time of papers published in journals via preprints showed the time these papers are posted in relation to these intervals. The median of the peer‐review and acceptance time of the journal submission date that was later than the date of first posting to bioRχiv was 110.00 days, and in the reverse case, it was 139.50 days. Posting to the preprint server before journal submission shows a better order than vice versa. This study provides us a good understanding of the peer‐review process. It also gives us good insights into optimizing this process, which would then facilitate paper publication and knowledge dissemination. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

This study investigated papers posted on bioRXiv. In 2013–19, 17,818 papers were published in academic journals, accounting for 40.67% of the total publication. Among them, the Web of Science (WoS) Core Collection recorded journals of 16,525 published papers, accounting for 92.74% of the total. The following conclusions can be drawn. (1) Results indicate scientists' attention to the preprint system. (2) A large number of papers still use traditional publishing as the ultimate goal. (3) Because the posted papers scrutinized in this study were published in journals with a high impact factor, they have attracted the attention of many scientists. Nevertheless, we believe that the preprint platform will play a greater role from the academic exchange perspective. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]