BioRxiv

bioRxiv
Type of site
Science
Available inEnglish
OwnerCold Spring Harbor Laboratory
URLbiorxiv.org
CommercialNo
LaunchedNovember 2013; 11 years ago (2013-11)
Current statusOnline

bioRxiv (pronounced "bio-archive"[1][2]) is an open access preprint repository for the biological sciences co-founded by John Inglis and Richard Sever in November 2013.[3][4] It is hosted by the Cold Spring Harbor Laboratory (CSHL).[5]

As preprints, papers hosted on bioRxiv are not peer-reviewed (though submissions may be undergoing peer review and peer reviews from other sources may be posted alongside preprints). However, all submissions undergo a basic scrutinization process, which includes safeguarding checks, an automated plagiarism screening and an assessment of appropriateness. Moreover, readers may post comments.

It has been measured that two thirds of the papers posted in bioRxiv are later published in peer-reviewed journals.[6] BioRxiv, and its sister site, medRxiv, have been major sources for the dissemination of COVID-19 research.[7][8]

History

BioRxiv was inspired by and intends to complement the arXiv repository, which mostly focuses on mathematics, physics and connected disciplines, launched in 1991 by Paul Ginsparg (who also serves on the bioRxiv advisory board). It received support from both the CSHL and the Lourie Foundation.[9] Additional funding from the Chan Zuckerberg Initiative was confirmed in April 2017.[10][11]

Prior to the establishment of bioRxiv, biological scientists were divided on the issue of having a dedicated preprint open-access repository.[3] Many had concerns of having their research scooped by competitors and losing their claim to discovery. However, several geneticists had submitted papers to the "quantitative biology" section of the arXiv repository (launched in 2003) and no longer had those concerns, as they could point to preprints to support their claims of discovery.[3][12]

Submission rate

Jocelyn Kaiser of Science said that in its first year, the repository had "attracted a modest but growing stream of papers", having hosted 824 preprints.[13] Over 20,000 tweets were made about bioRxiv-hosted preprints in 2015.[9]

February 2016, the submission rate to bioRxiv had steadily increased from ≈60 to ≈200 per month.[9] In 2017, the number of monthly submissions rose from over 800 in March[14] to more than 1000 in July[15] with a total number of 10,722 papers submitted in 2017.[16]

In the year of 2018, a total of 20,000 manuscripts were submitted, which results in a monthly average of 1600 papers.[17]

In the year 2019, over 31,000 manuscripts were submitted, which results in a monthly average of 2600 papers (which accelerated to just over 3000 papers per month in the last quarter of 2019).[18]

The number of yearly manuscripts rose to 38,088 in 2020, then slightly increased to 40,223 in 2021, followed by 36,417 manuscripts being published in 2022. As of December 31, 2022, almost 180,000 preprints have been accepted in total.[19]

Fields

bioRxiv accepts preprints in the following disciplines

bioRxiv, journals, and open peer review

As a result of bioRxiv's popularity, many biology journals have updated their policies on preprints,[9][13] clarifying they do not consider preprints to be a 'prior publication' for purpose of the Ingelfinger rule.

The bioRxiv to Journals (B2J) initiative allows authors to submit their manuscript directly to a journal's submission system through bioRxiv. As of May 2020, 177 journals participate in the initiative.[1]

In 2019, BioRxiv started allowing posting reviews alongside preprints, in addition to allowing comments on preprints. The reviews can come from journals or from platforms such as Review Commons.[20]

See also

References

  1. ^ a b "Advancing the sharing of research results for the life sciences". bioRxiv. Retrieved 2018-12-12.
  2. ^ Sever, Richard; Roeder, Ted; Hindle, Samantha; Sussman, Linda; Black, Kevin-John; Argentine, Janet; Manos, Wayne; Inglis, John R. (November 6, 2019). "bioRxiv: the preprint server for biology". bioRxiv 10.1101/833400.
  3. ^ a b c Callaway, Ewen (12 November 2013). "Preprints come to life". Nature. 503 (7475): 180. Bibcode:2013Natur.503..180C. doi:10.1038/503180a. PMID 24226869.
  4. ^ Cold Spring Harbor Laboratory. "bioRxiv preprints can now be submitted directly to leading research journals". PhysOrg. Retrieved 2018-03-17.
  5. ^ "About bioRxiv". bioRxiv. Cold Spring Harbor Laboratory. Retrieved 2016-09-07.
  6. ^ Abdill, Richard J (24 April 2019). "Meta-Research, Tracking the popularity and outcomes of all bioRxiv preprints". eLife. 8: e45133. doi:10.7554/eLife.45133. PMC 6510536. PMID 31017570. S2CID 129944106.
  7. ^ Yan, Wudan (2020-04-14). "Coronavirus Tests Science's Need for Speed Limits". The New York Times. ISSN 0362-4331. Retrieved 2020-05-01.
  8. ^ Koerth, Maggie (2021-07-08). "How Science Moved Beyond Peer Review During The Pandemic". FiveThirtyEight. Retrieved 2021-08-07.
  9. ^ a b c d Inglis, John R.; Sever, Richard (12 February 2016). "bioRxiv: a progress report". ASAPbio. Retrieved 2016-09-11.
  10. ^ Callaway, Ewen (2017). "BioRxiv preprint server gets cash boost from Chan Zuckerberg Initiative". Nature. 545 (7652): 18. Bibcode:2017Natur.545...18C. doi:10.1038/nature.2017.21894. PMID 28470210.
  11. ^ Kaiser, Jocelyn (26 April 2017). "BioRxiv preprint server gets funding from Chan Zuckerberg Initiative". Science. doi:10.1126/science.aal1117.
  12. ^ Callaway, Ewen (31 July 2012). "Geneticists eye the potential of arXiv". Nature. 488 (7409): 19. Bibcode:2012Natur.488...19C. doi:10.1038/488019a. PMID 22859182.
  13. ^ a b Kaiser, Jocelyn (11 November 2014). "BioRxiv at 1 year: A promising start". Science. Retrieved 2016-09-07.
  14. ^ "John Inglis on Twitter". Twitter. Retrieved 2017-03-01.
  15. ^ Inglis, John (2017-06-30). "A life sci #preprint milestone: @biorxivpreprint's first >1000 ms month. Thanks to authors, affiliates, and staff for making it happen". @JohnRInglis. Retrieved 2017-07-02.
  16. ^ "Search Results | bioRxiv". biorxiv.org. Retrieved 2018-10-22.
  17. ^ "Search Results | bioRxiv".
  18. ^ "Search Results | bioRxiv".
  19. ^ "Search Results | bioRxiv". biorxiv.org. Retrieved 2020-01-21.
  20. ^ Brainard, Jeffrey (2019-10-10). "In bid to boost transparency, bioRxiv begins posting peer reviews next to preprints". Science. American Association for the Advancement of Science (AAAS). doi:10.1126/science.aaz8160. ISSN 0036-8075. S2CID 211766434.

Further reading