Skip to content

ACN - 101321555 | ABN - 39101321555

Australasian Human Research Ethics Consultancy Services Pty Ltd (AHRECS)

AHRECS icon
  • Home
  • About Us
    • Consultants
    • Services
  • Previous Projects
  • Blog
  • Resources
  • Feeds
  • Contact Us
  • More
    • Request a Quote
    • Susbcribe to REM
    • Subscribe to VIP
Menu
  • Home
  • About Us
    • Consultants
    • Services
  • Previous Projects
  • Blog
  • Resources
  • Feeds
  • Contact Us
  • More
    • Request a Quote
    • Susbcribe to REM
    • Subscribe to VIP
Exclude terms...
Aboriginal and Torres Strait Islander
AHRECS
Analysis
Artificial Intelligence
Arts
Australia
Authorship
Belief
Beneficence
Big data
Biobank
Bioethics
Biomedical
Biospecimens
Breaches
Cartoon/Funny
Case studies
Clinical trial
Collaborative research
Conflicts of interest
Consent
Controversy/Scandal
Controversy/Scandal
Creative
Culture
Data management
Database
Dual-use
Essential Reading
Ethical review
Ethnography
Evaluative practice/quality assurance
First People
Fraud
Gender
Genetics
Good practice
Guidance
Honesty
HREC
Human research ethics
Humanities
Institutional responsibilities
International
Journal
Justice
Links
Media
Medical research
Merit and integrity
Methodology
Monitoring
New Zealand
News
Online research
Peer review
Performance
Primary materials
Principles
Privacy
Protection for participants
Psychology
Publication ethics
Questionable Publishers
Research ethics committees
Research integrity
Research Misconduct
Research results
Researcher responsibilities
Resources
Respect for persons
Sample paperwork
sd
Serious Adverse Event
Social Science
SoTL
Standards
Supervision
Training
Vulnerability
Young people
Exclude news

Sort by

Human Research Ethics Research Integrity

Shepherding preprints through a pandemic (Paper – Feature: Theodora Bloom | )

Posted by Dr Gary Allen in Research Integrity on January 13, 2021
Keywords: Analysis, Institutional responsibilities, Merit and integrity, Publication ethics, Research integrity, Research results

The Linked Original Item was Posted On January, 1 1970

The words "FAKE NEWS" coming out of a COVID-19 cell

The medRxiv clinical preprint server launched in 2019 and has had to adapt at pace this year, as preprints have been adopted widely during the pandemic, says Theodora Bloom

People tend to have opinions on preprints and whether they help or hinder progress in research. I’m an unabashed preprint advocate. Of course, some preprints are more important and interesting than others, and some prove to be plain wrong, just like journal articles. And I declare an interest: last year BMJ joined forces with Cold Spring Harbor Laboratory and Yale University to launch a preprint server for clinical medicine, medRxiv (pronounced “med-archive”),1 to enable quicker exchange of research ideas.2 In its first six months medRxiv handled a few hundred articles. In 2020 so far it has posted 12 000, mostly on one topic: coronavirus.3

Some have described the pre-print publication of papers as a laudable component of the move to open science and that it is democratising peer review.  Others have noted with concern, the perils of publishing theories without prior peer review.  Regardless, there can be no dispute of their speed and impact.  This BMJ Editorial Feature reflects on their role amidst a gruelling pandemic.

Before the launch we decided what types of papers to post, how to screen them quickly while limiting risk to patients and populations, and what requirements to place on authors.4 The pandemic changed none of these criteria, but they were all tested repeatedly through discussion channels and video meetings—and our concerns and processes have evolved with each phase of the pandemic.

For example, medRxiv aims to post only research articles (including systematic reviews) and protocols, not opinions or commentaries. But what counts as research? Some blog posts and newspaper articles contain more data and analysis than many preprint submissions. We decided that a preprint describing publicly available data should include research methods, contain more than just graphs and discussion, and discuss the research presented, rather than using a small amount of data to justify an extensive opinion.

Bloom, T. (2020) Shepherding preprints through a pandemic BMJ. 371 :m4703
Publisher (Free access): https://www.bmj.com/content/371/bmj.m4703

Related Reading

Preprints Involving Medical Research—Do the Benefits Outweigh the Challenges? (Papers (Editorial): Annette Flanagin, et al | November 2020)

How a torrent of COVID science changed research publishing — in seven charts – Nature (Holly Else | December 2020)

Journalism, Preprint Servers, and the Truth: Allocating Accountability – Scholarly Kitchen (Rick Anderson | December 2020)

Preprinting a pandemic: the role of preprints in the COVID-19 pandemic (Pre-Print Papers: Nicholas Fraser, et al | May 2020)

Disseminating Scientific Results in the Age of Rapid Communication – EOS (Shobha Kondragunta, et al | October 2020)

Efficient Scientific Self-Correction in Times of Crisis (Books: Michèle B. Nuijten | October 2020)

On Clarifying the Goals of a Peer Review Taxonomy – Scholarly Kitchen (Micah Altman & Philip N. Cohenoct | October 2020)

Coronavirus in context: Scite.ai tracks positive and negative citations for COVID-19 literature – Nature (Roxanne Khamsi | May 2020)

Coronavirus Tests Science’s Need for Speed Limits – New York Times (Wudan Yan | April 2020)

Assuring research integrity during a pandemic – BMJopinion (Gowri Gopalakrishna, et al | June 2020)

Waste in covid-19 research (Editorial – Paul P Glasziou, et al | May 2020)

(US) JetBlue’s Founder Helped Fund A Stanford Study That Said The Coronavirus Wasn’t That Deadly – Buzzfeed News (Stephanie M. Lee | May 2020)

Strong caveats are lacking as news stories trumpet preliminary COVID-19 research – HealthNewsReview (Mary Chris Jaklevic | April 2020)

Science Communications In the Time of Coronavirus – WYNC Studios (March 2020)

Born Digital – The Expanding Universe of Research Content – Scholarly Kitchen (Judy Luther | November 2019)

Peer Review Fails to Prevent Publication of Paper with Unsupported Claims About Peer Review – Scholarly Kitchen (Tim Vines | March 2018)

Advocating for publishing peer review – ASAbio (Iain Cheeseman | April 2018)

Preprints and Citations: Should Non-Peer Reviewed Material Be Included in Article References? – Scholarly Kitchen (David Crotty | March 2018)

What Is “Open Science”? (And Why Some Researchers Want It) – Futurism (Elizabeth Gilbert, Katie Corker | June 2017)

A mathematical theory of knowledge, science, bias and pseudoscience (Papers: Daniele Fanelli ​| 2016)

Standing up for peer review – CrossTALK (Emilie Marcus: September 2016)

Related Links

  • About the contributors
  • About the keywords
  • Suggest a resource
  • Report problem/broken link
  • Request a Take Down

Compiled here are links, downloads and other resources relating to research integrity and human research ethics. more…

Resources Menu

Four hands solving a jigsaw against the sun blazing out of a cloudy sky

Research Integrity

  • Codes, guidelines, policies and standards
  • Guidance and resource material
  • Papers
  • Books
  • In the news

Human Research Ethics

  • Codes, guidelines, policies and standards
  • Guidance and resource material
  • Papers
  • Books
  • In the news

Research Ethics Monthly Receive copies of the Research Ethics Monthly directly
by email. We will never spam you.

  • Home
  • Services
  • About Us
  • Contact Us
Menu
  • Home
  • Services
  • About Us
  • Contact Us
  • Company
  • Terms Of Use
  • Copyright
  • Privacy Policy
  • Disclaimer
Menu
  • Company
  • Terms Of Use
  • Copyright
  • Privacy Policy
  • Disclaimer
  • Support
  • Contact Us
  • Site Map
Menu
  • Support
  • Contact Us
  • Site Map

Australasian Human Research Ethics Consultancy Services Pty Ltd (AHRECS)

Facebook-f
Twitter
Linkedin-in