Mar 31, 2024 14:00:00

What is behind the decline in peer-reviewed preprints in academic journals?

Academic publishing services such as

TU Delft OPEN Publishing and MIT Press host tens of thousands of preprints and peer -reviewed preprints. However, recent studies have confirmed that the proportion of peer-reviewed articles published has been declining. Software engineer Daniel Bingham explains why.

Why isn't preprint review being adopted? | The Road Goes On, Thoughts and Essays by Daniel Bingham
https://www.theroadgoeson.com/why-isnt-preprint-review-being-adopted

The lack of growth in the number of peer-reviewed preprints on academic publishing services has been shown in a paper by Michele Avissar-Whiting et al. of the Howard Hughes Medical Institute.

On preprint servers like

arXiv , the number of papers that have not been peer-reviewed is steadily increasing, and according to Bingham, arXiv will host as many as 20,000 papers per year in 2023. Below is a graph showing the types and total number of papers published on arXiv. As of 2021, we can see that as many as 180,000 non-peer-reviewed papers are published on the server per year.

On the other hand, the table below shows the number of peer-reviewed preprints and the year-on-year increase rate. It shows that while the number of peer-reviewed preprints itself is steadily increasing, the rate of increase is sluggish.

Year	Number of peer-reviewed preprints	Year-over-year increase in peer-reviewed preprints
2017	twenty three	-
2018	53	130%
2019	317	498%
2020	875	176%
2021	1698	94%
2022	2704	59%
2023	3144	16%

Some of these services have introduced crowdsourced peer review in addition to the standard peer review method of having multiple reviewers review a preprint. However, Bingham explains his own thoughts on why the proportion of peer-reviewed preprints posted is not increasing.

Preprint servers like arXiv allow you to post your preprints without peer review, allowing you to share your research with your peers and the community more quickly. Although there is less prestige to be gained from posting a peer-reviewed preprint or paper, you can post a preprint without the time and resources required for peer review.

To post a peer-reviewed preprint on a typical academic publishing service, you must access the platform, understand how to submit a preprint, submit the preprint for peer review, wait for the review to be completed, etc. Although some academic publishing services simplify this process, it still places a significant burden on submitters.

In response to this situation, Bingham believes that 'like academic journals, peer-reviewed preprints have the same value as peer-reviewed articles.' Furthermore, to develop peer-reviewed preprints, Bingham suggested that 'the place where papers are published should change from traditional academic journals to preprint platforms,' and that 'this would allow preprints and preprint peer review to be incorporated into scholars' workflows, making it easier to publish papers.'