Editors Letter pubs.acs.org/acschemicalbiology
ChemRXiv: A Chemistry Preprint Server preprints as well as to make the final, peer-reviewed versions accessible to interested parties. ACS Chemical Biology and Nano Letters policies consider manuscripts that have been submitted previously to a preprint server on an equal basis with those that have not. However, both journals request that all authors alert them to any preprinted server submissions, and authors are reminded that if ACS Chemical Biology and Nano Letters elect to publish the work following the peer review process, and possibly edit it along the way, then ACS will hold the copyright to the final version of the manuscript, which is of course then the final version appropriate for citation. At ACS Nano, our policy has always been that we consider manuscripts that have previously been posted on preprint servers. It is the authors’ responsibility to tell us that this action has already been taken. In that case, we consider the required threshold for novelty to be somewhat higher, as some of the novelty has been lost through the posting, but otherwise handle the paper identically to all others submitted. Each journal at each publisher has their own rules, and it is important to check the guidelines for authors when considering posting preprints and submitted to a specific journal. We too evolve, so look for changes in these publication policies with time.
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he following excerpt appeared as an editorial in the October 2016 issue of ACS Nano (DOI: 10.1021/ acsnano.6b07008).1 The theory of evolution is inextricably linked to Darwin not to Darwin and Wallace. Wallace devised a similar theory, and he and Darwin jointly published their ideas. Presumably, this publication was read by a small number of researchers, and the lack of recognition of Wallace’s contributions suggested this first disclosure had little impact. In contrast, Darwin’s engaging publication On the Origin of the Species2 led others to adopt and build on evolutionary theory. As scientists, we publish our results to move our fields forward, and the importance of communicating scientific results clearly and to wide audiences is therefore vital. Formal publication is not the only means of communicating our results. One means to circulate results widely and to obtain feedback is through preprint servers. Preprint servers function as repositories for scientific preprints that have not yet been subjected to peer review. In this way, these repositories complement traditional journals, as servers provide a platform for immediate dissemination of negative as well as positive results and solicitation of feedback from a broad community. The utility of preprint servers as communication tools is well-established in the physics and mathematics communities and is now also being adopted by the biology community. Their experiences, and ours, running interdisciplinary journals, provide the impetus for offering the chemistry community a similar venue. A physics- and mathematics-focused preprint server, arXiv, has been in existence for 25 years, and almost 10 000 papers were submitted last month, in September 2016.3 In 2013, bioRxiv was launched for the biological sciences.4 Submissions to this preprint server have also grown rapidly.4 A major driving force appears to be the slow pace of the peer review process, which Ron Vale has suggested has a deleterious impact on the length of time to Ph.D. as well as the length of postdoctoral studies.5 While we work hard to ensure rapid consideration of the manuscripts that our journals handle, in this context, a means to transmit important scientific findings rapidly prior to publication can accelerate career advancement for younger scientists. Preprints can also be used to transmit valuable information for reviewers of grant applications. Preprints and preprint servers can be used to provide and to receive feedback on work, prior to submission, much like giving a talk on new work to a broad audience. The publication of preprints sets a priority date and also alerts other laboratories to current research, possibly preventing needless duplication. As noted above, preprint servers provide a means to publish negative results without straining the already overwhelmed peer review system that we have. We see every day that peer review provides valuable wisdom to authors and to journals and thus also to readers. In cases of work important to healthcare, as patients and their families and friends increasingly research their own cases, it will be important both to reach out to clarify the meaning of posted © 2016 American Chemical Society
Laura L. Kiessling, Editor-in-Chief ACS Chemical Biology
Laura E. Fernandez, Managing Editor ACS Nano and Nano Letters
A. Paul Alivisatos, Co-Editor Nano Letters
Paul S. Weiss, Editor-in-Chief
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ACS Nano
AUTHOR INFORMATION
Notes
Disclosure: Views expressed in this editorial are those of the authors and not necessarily the views of the ACS.
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REFERENCES
(1) Kiessling, L. K., Fernandez, L. E., Alivisatos, A. P., and Weiss, P. S. (2016) ChemRXiv: A Chemistry Preprint Server. ACS Nano 10, 9053−9054. (2) Darwin, C. (1859) On the Origin of Species by Means of Natural Selection, or the Preservation of Favoured Races in the Struggle for Life, John Murray, London. (3) arXiv.org help - arXiv usage statistics. https://arxiv.org/help/ stats. (4) bioRxiv: a progress report. http://asapbio.org/biorxiv. (5) Vale, R. D. (2015) Accelerating Scientific Publication in Biology. Proc. Natl. Acad. Sci. U. S. A. 112, 13439−13446.
Published: November 18, 2016 2937
DOI: 10.1021/acschembio.6b00974 ACS Chem. Biol. 2016, 11, 2937−2937
