The idea that a government or a lab can issue its findings prior to formal period publication has probably existed since the year zero. I think the interesting thing is that the pandemic has sort of coincided with this sort of hyper viral technological ability to move things quickly. And also, this rapid response, governments around the world were eagerly trying to get any information they could about coved when this first happened. But that was also not without its dangers. You're probably all familiar with the ivometin scandal. These were preprint papers that basically went viral,. and this sort of information that wasn't accurate, as it turned out, was out in the world.
In this first episode of Nature's Take, we get four of Nature's staff around microphones to get their expert take on preprints. These pre-peer-review open access articles have spiked in number over recent years and have cemented themselves as an integral part of scientific publishing. But this has not been without its issues.
In this discussion we cover a lot of ground. Amongst other things, we ask whether preprints could help democratise science or contribute to a loss of trust in scientists. We pick apart the relationship between preprints and peer-reviewed journals and tackle some common misconceptions. We ask how preprints have been used by different fields and how the pandemic has changed the game. And as we look to the future, we ask how preprints fit into the discussion around open access and even if they could do away with journals all together.
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