Affiliation:
1. Cold Spring Harbor Laboratory
Abstract
Posting papers as preprints allows rapid communication of research findings and so
speeds up the scientific process. The practice has been common in physics and
computational science for over 30 years but is now being embraced by biologists, health
scientists and other academic fields. The decoupling of dissemination from peer review
that preprints provide is also stimulating evolution of the publishing ecosystem. It has
the potential to improve the way in which scientific information is presented, verified,
reviewed and curated, as well as benefiting individuals by allowing more multi-
dimensional and equitable forms of assessment.