PreprintResolver: Improving Citation Quality by Resolving Published Versions of ArXiv Preprints using Literature Databases

The growing impact of preprint servers enables the rapid sharing of time-sensitive research. Likewise, it is becoming increasingly difficult to distinguish high-quality, peer-reviewed research from preprints. Although preprints are often later published in peer-reviewed journals, this information is often missing from preprint servers. To overcome this problem, the PreprintResolver was developed, which uses four literature databases (DBLP, SemanticScholar, OpenAlex, and CrossRef / CrossCite) to identify preprint-publication pairs for the arXiv preprint server. The target audience focuses on, but is not limited to inexperienced researchers and students, especially from the field of computer science. The tool is based on a fuzzy matching of author surnames, titles, and DOIs. Experiments were performed on a sample of 1,000 arXiv-preprints from the research field of computer science and without any publication information. With 77.94 %, computer science is highly affected by missing publication information in arXiv. The results show that the PreprintResolver was able to resolve 603 out of 1,000 (60.3 %) arXiv-preprints from the research field of computer science and without any publication information. All four literature databases contributed to the final result. In a manual validation, a random sample of 100 resolved preprints was checked. For all preprints, at least one result is plausible. For nine preprints, more than one result was identified, three of which are partially invalid. In conclusion the PreprintResolver is suitable for individual, manually reviewed requests, but less suitable for bulk requests. The PreprintResolver tool (https://preprintresolver.eu, Available from 2023-08-01) and source code (https://gitlab.com/ippolis_wp3/preprint-resolver, Accessed: 2023-07-19) is available online.Comment: Accepted for International Conference on Theory and Practice of Digital Libraries (TPDL 2023

Motivations, concerns and selection biases when posting preprints: A survey of bioRxiv authors

Since 2013, the usage of preprints as a means of sharing research in biology has rapidly grown, in particular via the preprint server bioRxiv. Recent studies have found that journal articles that were previously posted to bioRxiv received a higher number of citations or mentions/shares on other online platforms compared to articles in the same journals that were not posted. However, the exact causal mechanism for this effect has not been established, and may in part be related to authors' biases in the selection of articles that are chosen to be posted as preprints. We aimed to investigate this mechanism by conducting a mixed-methods survey of 1,444 authors of bioRxiv preprints, to investigate the reasons that they post or do not post certain articles as preprints, and to make comparisons between articles they choose to post and not post as preprints. We find that authors are most strongly motivated to post preprints to increase awareness of their work and increase the speed of its dissemination; conversely, the strongest reasons for not posting preprints centre around a lack of awareness of preprints and reluctance to publicly post work that has not undergone a peer review process. We additionally find evidence that authors do not consider quality, novelty or significance when posting or not posting research as preprints, however, authors retain an expectation that articles they post as preprints will receive more citations or be shared more widely online than articles not posted.Seit 2013 hat die Nutzung von Preprints als Mittel zur Verbreitung von Forschungsergebnissen in der Biologie stark zugenommen, insbesondere über den Preprint-Server bioRxiv. Jüngste Studien haben ergeben, dass Zeitschriftenartikel, die zuvor auf bioRxiv veröffentlicht wurden, auf anderen Online-Plattformen häufiger zitiert oder erwähnt/geteilt wurden als Artikel derselben Zeitschriften, die nicht veröffentlicht wurden. Der genaue kausale Mechanismus für diesen Effekt ist jedoch nicht geklärt und könnte zum Teil mit der Voreingenommenheit der Autor*innen bei der Auswahl der Artikel, die als Preprints veröffentlicht werden, zusammenhängen. Die Autor*innen wollten diesen Mechanismus untersuchen, indem sie eine mixed-methods-Umfrage unter 1.444 Autor*innen von bioRxiv-Preprints durchführten, um die Gründe zu untersuchen, aus denen sie bestimmte Artikel als Preprints veröffentlichen oder nicht veröffentlichen, und um Vergleiche zwischen Artikeln anzustellen, die sie als Preprints veröffentlichen oder nicht veröffentlichen. Sie stellen fest, dass Autor*innen am stärksten motiviert sind, Preprints zu veröffentlichen, um den Bekanntheitsgrad ihrer Arbeit zu erhöhen und deren Verbreitung zu beschleunigen. Umgekehrt liegen die stärksten Gründe für die Nichtveröffentlichung von Preprints in der mangelnden Bekanntheit von Preprints und der Abneigung, eine Arbeit zu veröffentlichen, die keinen Peer-Review-Prozess durchlaufen hat