Today, COAR and ASAPbio are pleased to announce the publication of “Ten Recommended Practices for Managing Preprints in Generalist and Institutional Repositories”.
As preprint sharing becomes more common, we need a cohesive and sustainable ecosystem to support researchers around the world.
Currently, there are numerous gaps in geographic and domain coverage and some authors will choose to deposit their research outputs into another type of repository, such as an institutional or generalist repository. For example, many existing preprint servers only allow submissions in English, which limits the options for researchers who work in other languages. Or, researchers may want to have their preprint hosted in their own country or region to comply with national policies or other preferences. In addition, there is an open question about the long term funding for many preprint servers, as they often rely on short term grant funding, so a distributed network that can support preprint sharing across a range of platforms will contribute to the sustainability of the system.
It is clear that institutional and generalist repositories have an important role to play in supporting preprint sharing worldwide.
To address these gaps, a COAR-ASAPbio Working Group on Preprint in Repositories identified ten recommended practices for managing preprints across three areas: linking, discovery, and editorial processes. While we acknowledge that many of these practices are not currently in use by institutional and generalist repositories, we hope that these recommendations will encourage repositories around the world that collect preprints to begin to apply them locally.
