What effects does submitting a journal article as preprint first have on its citation and sharing? In a recently published study, a team of german researchers found out that:
- Preprints that are posted on bioRxiv are shared widely online (for instance on social media, such as Twitter) and often cited directly in the scientific literature.
- Once a preprint has been peer-reviewed and published in a journal, the journal article subsequently receives more citations and more online attention than articles published at the same time and in the same journals that were never submitted as a preprint.
Nicholas Fraser, postdoctoral researcher, explains these findings in an interview to ZBW Mediatalk.