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Interim Research Projects and Preprints

Intro

There are several public repositories and archives available new and they are continuing to grow. Things to think about when choosing the one best for you:

  • Find one that is publicly available
  • Easy to search
  • Provides a DOI (digital object identifier)
  • Includes policies about plagiarism and other types of scholarly misconduct

In an effort to standardize accessibility and integrity of IRPs created through the use of NIH funds guidelines.Interim research products rely on repositories to make them public. 

"The NIH would like to ensure that practices for interim products facilitate the impact, measurement and the integrity of the scientific record. Specifically, the NIH strongly encourages interim research products arising from NIH funds to be deposited in repositories that ensure: 

  • Content is findable, accessible, interoperable and reusable.
  • Interim product metadata, including usage statistics, are open, and easy to access by machines and people (e.g. via application program interfaces).
  • Content is easy to use by machines and people. This access is both a function of permission (e.g. use of Creative Commons licenses) and technology (e.g. application program interfaces).
  • Policies about plagiarism, competing interests, misconduct and other hallmarks of reputable scholarly publishing are rigorous and transparent.
  • Records of changes to the product are maintained, and users have clear ways to cite different versions of the product.
  • Links to the published version, if available.
  • A robust archiving strategy that ensures long-term preservation and access"

Information comes from https://grants.nih.gov/grants/guide/notice-files/NOT-OD-17-050.html

Please note this is not a complete list of preprint servers aka repositories but a small sample.

Please be aware that while most scientific publishers do not consider preprint servers (e.g. bioRxiv or aRxiv) a problem regarding publication consideration but some do. Proceedings of the National Academy of Sciences (PNAS) preprint publication will depending on the licensing type while Journal of Clinical Investigation will not publish preprinted materials. Wikipedia maintains the List of academic journals by preprint policy so make sure to check this list before considering a publication submission if you have preprinted material.