Xmas special - Battle of the servers, how to choose a preprint server

Preprints in Motion

DISCLAIMER – These servers were reviewed from the approach of a first use instance and may not accurately reflect the full capabilities of each server. Moreover, any comments are opinions only.

Preprint servers. There’s an incredibly interesting history behind them (watch this space for more on that next year) but as of 2022 there are over 50 different preprint servers. No wonder it feels like they’re an inescapable topic these days. I mean, we’re contributing to that but hey. Some are highly specialised, such as EcoEvoRxiv (that’s ecology, evolution and conservation), and some are geo-restricted, such as AfriaRxiv.

Consideration of preprint servers based on discipline, scope, policies, and readership is relevant to inform where to deposit your preprint, and in turn to maximize visibility for the work and opportunities for feedback from researchers in your specific field. In this episode we take 3 of the top general bioscience preprint severs and put them to battle. We judge each on their:

• Appearance / ease of use – navigating and submitting
• Reach /size
• Journal integrations
• Additional offerings – public peer reviews, data, printing, links out, attention/metrics
• Positives of the server
• Negatives/improvement aspects of the server
• Why choose this server over the others?

Useful links:

https://asapbio.org/preprint-servers

https://journals.biologists.com/bio/article/11/7/bio059310/276073/A-guide-to-preprinting-for-early-career

Some preprint servers in addition to those discussed in the episode:

OSF – more of a search engine but very useful

bioRxiv/medRxiv

Research Square

Authorea

F1000

Cell Sneak Peak and Preprints with the Lancet

Preprints.org

This episode was produced by Jonny Coates, Camilla Valenzuela and John Howard and edited by John Howard.

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Produced by JEmJ Productions (find us on Twitter: Jonny @JACoates, Emma @ELWilson92, John @JohnDHoward8) and generously supported by ASAPbio (https://asapbio.org | @asapbio_).