Nature: Researchers use "preprints" to quickly share coronavirus test results, but this may backfire

Guide: As countries around the world rush to learn about COVID-19, studies seem to offer a cure or new risk factor for the disease, but it soon turned out to be wrong
as countries around the world scramble to learn about COVID-19, and several studies seem to offer a cure or new risk factor for the disease, but it soon proved to be wrongpeople with type A blood are more likely to be infected with the coronavirus, according to a sensational news reportThe story was soon debunkeda common factor in these stories is that the original study was published in the form of a "preprint"but what are preprints and how should we use them? One of theclues is the nameThe preprintist is the pre-publication version of the research paperword has been around for decadesBefore the advent of the Internet, physicists posted copies of draft papers to each other for advicewith the Internet, it's obviously more efficient to put these newspapers in a central locationIn 1991, the first electronic preprint server was born, now known as arXivpicture source: this means that anyone with access to the Internet can read and comment on the workThe preprint server now has nearly 1.7 million papersthe number of preprinted servers has exploded over the past few yearsBioRxiv, one of the biggest biological rivals after arXiv, was released in 2013 The update is medRxiv, which was introduced last year , as expected, the number of preprints published on these servers has also grown exponentially The preprint study related to COVID-19 further increased this figure so, what's the problem? All these studies can be seen, isn't that great? No, it's not researchers need to quickly share their coronary work
in rapidly changing environments, such as during pandemics, it's important for researchers to know what's going on and who's doing it Preprinting could have allowed them to quickly discover other people's research progress researchers are the target audience for these preprints and understand that there can be significant differences between preprints and the final release public, including journalists, access to these preprints because they are public this is a far cry from most academic publications, which are charged and for people without subscriptions to watch for tens or even hundreds of dollars at a time but the public, including journalists, are often less aware of the temporary nature of the research found on these preprintservers this, has become increasingly problematic as the media publishes projects based on unverified information
and Australia's chief scientist is urging the public to be wary of the alleged breakthrough preprintserver itself has pointed out that these articles are not peer-reviewed and should not be "reported in the news media as established information" the path to release
once a research project finds something, the team will write a paper describing what they did, what they found, and what made it a new discovery the paper is sometimes published as a preprint The paper is then submitted to a journal for research, and the journal editor sends the paper to experts in the field for comment - a process known as peer review picture source: The reviewer sent back their comments, which may require the author to add additional information to the paper, or sometimes to do additional experiments The researchers processed the comments and resubmitted them before the paper was published this can take a long time, from months to years, before the paper can be published This is a problem during the pandemic academic publishing is trying to improve the flow of information Many publishers publish articles about COVID-19 many publishers are also rapidly following up on peer reviews But even within such an accelerated time frame, the process will still take some time Preprinting is the fastest remember, preprints are not peer-reviewed While many publications do not change much after peer review, some articles require considerable modification or even withdrawal all this doesn't mean that the preprints you read are rubbish In fact, preprints are an important part of the publishing process in fact, the prestigious journal Nature now encourages researchers to upload their papers as preprints Other journals have similar policies what can the public do? when looking for information, it's best to use published research -- formats and publishing labels -- as clues However, if you want to determine whether a preprint contains valid information, try looking for another article that publishes a similar study What happened to blood type study? The original preprint, published on March 16th, was full of comments On March 27, the researchers uploaded a second version, emphasizing that "this is a limited early study" As long as you know what you're looking at, the system will work Source: 's 'pre-prints' to-share-the-table-scan-but-can-backfire
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