The rise of preprints in earth sciences

Introduction

A research article’s preprint is its initial draft shared online, which is frequently (but not always) created before submission to a journal and formal peer review (Sarabipour et al., 2019). Preprint archiving services have existed since the 1960s, and thus are not a recent invention (Ginsparg, 2016). A centralized online network called arXiv, pronounced “är kv” (from the Greek letter "chi"), was created in August 1991 to exchange physics preprints (Bourne et al., 2017). For more than 30 years, arXiv has assisted the fields of physics, mathematics, and computer science, during which time the rate of scientific knowledge dissemination rapidly accelerated (Ginsparg, 2016; Tennant et al. 2019).

A range of cross-domain or discipline-specific preprint platforms now exist, with exponential growth these last ten years (Kirkham et al., 2020). Preprints as a whole only represent a very small fraction of scholarly publication, but a strong group of early adopters is starting to adopt their use, which is adding value across a much wider range of disciplines than before. Preprint archiving may aid in the modernization of Earth Sciences publishing by removing obstacles to widespread scientific engagement and stumbling blocks to the development of an open and transparent research culture (Pourret et al., 2022).

In this Opinion Article, we further look at the evolution of three main options for earth scientists, namely EarthArXiv, ESSOAr/ESS Open Archive and EGUsphere and provide opinion on benefits and issues using preprints in earth sciences.

Preprints in earth sciences

Preprints have recently gained popularity across a wider range of academic fields, including the Earth Sciences (Nature Geoscience Editorial Board, 2018). The three main preprints servers in Earth Sciences are EarthArXiv, ESSOAr/ESS Open Archive and EGUsphere.

As illustrated on Figure 1, the cumulative numbers of preprints from EarthArXiv, ESSOAr/ESS Open Archive and EGUsphere increased this last five past years; EarthArXiv published 3,429 preprints in five years, ESSOAr/ESS Open Archive published 7,436 in four years and EGUsphere published 326 preprints in less than a year (see Table 1 for details). These numbers still continue to grow and are following a similar track that preprints in biomedical disciplines did ten years ago (Penfold and Polka, 2019) but are not exponential as in medicine during COVID-19 pandemic (Watson, 2022).

Figure 1. Cumulative numbers of preprints from EarthArXiv, ESS Open Archive and EGUsphere (data sourced from preprint servers individually, accessed on January 02 2023).

Some other regional preprint services also exist as well as more general ones (e.g. Irawan et al., 2022); a list can be found here (Kirkham et al., 2020).

Benefits and issues using preprints

Preprints have numerous, well-established advantages for both researchers and the general audience (e.g., Bourne et al., 2017; Sarabipour et al., 2019; Pourret and Irawan, 2022). It is the author’s opinion that preprints, for instance, allow:

Despite these benefits, some authors point out that preprints without peer review raise a host of issues that may vary by discipline and publication type (e.g. Meinert, 2020). In particular, they may come with a caveat that interpretations are subject to change and that they may or may not lead to actual peer reviewed publication. Pourret et al. (2020) pointed out that the increased dissemination effect has the potential to be used to promote non-reproducible scholarship or fake news and adds an extra potential burden on readers. But fake news has plagued climate and environmental science for decades (e.g. Nature Communications Editorial Board, 2017) and it is not specific to just preprinted papers. Preprints may have some other disadvantages, including information overload, insufficient quality assurance, political influence, and outsized impact (e.g. Smart, 2022).

Posting preprints is advantageous for ECRs because they can be shared, cited, and demonstrate productivity. However, the decision to preprint a manuscript must be made by all of the co-authors, and ECRs are frequently not the decision-maker due to power dynamics associated with academia (Ettinger et al., 2022). As a result, ECRs could encounter circumstances in which they are eager to deposit a preprint but are unsure of how to contact their co-authors or bring up the possibility of preprinting to their advisors. It is especially important for those of them leaving their research group after a contractual term. Indeed, in a short time it is not always possible to fully write a research paper in this particular field, as the process of conducting a field study, sampling and geochemical analyses could take years.

Based on policies collated on Sherpa Romeo of the earth sciences journals, a majority of those journals do accept manuscripts preprinted prior to or during submission. As an example 84% of journals in geochemistry allow for preprinting (Pourret et al., 2020). The journals that do not offer a preprint option often do that because their thematic articles are mostly invited, generally review papers, and very rarely include the release of new data. This discrepancy is an example where the style and purpose of a given journal or magazine may influence editors and editorial boards to treat preprints differently based on the objectives of that scientific publication.

Concluding remarks

Overall, preprints have played a crucial role in advancing science for the benefit of humanity during the pandemic, according to the opinions of medical and scientific communities as well as the general people (Besançon et al., 2021). They are now included in some major bibliographic databases. Even if not always allowed by some funding agencies (e.g. Australian Research Council, Lanati et al., 2021), preprints are now a recognized step in the publication of scientific research and will continue to be used. For example, on Open Research Europe, the open access platform of Horizon 2020, Horizon Europe and Euratom funded projects, submitted articles are published prior to peer review, similar to preprints. Indeed, preprints are assisting in the modernization of our disciplines by reducing structural hurdles that prevent taxpayers, who frequently support knowledge development, from accessing science and knowledge, as well as by making research findings rapidly available to anybody who might benefit from them. The preprint landscape is moving fast, in early December 2022 PLOS announced in a press release a new partnership with EarthArXiv.

Additionally, PLOS, in partnership with DataSeer, has just released the first Open Science Indicators dataset, which uses large-scale Natural Language Processing to analyze published research articles to identify and track Open Science practices (Public Library of Science, 2022). The first three indicators included are: data sharing, code sharing, and preprint posting. Importantly, these metrics are not intended to rate or rank journals or publishers, but rather to set benchmarks, monitor changes over time, and better understand the research community’s use of Open Science practices such as preprinting. Even if bioRxiv reports up to 53% of preprints that are later published as papers (Abdill and Blekhman, 2019), Eckmann and Bandrowski (2023) estimated a bigger conversion from preprints to published articles. It is the author’s opinion that preprints are certainly here to stay!