Rob Gay on his PrePrint Experiences at PeerJ

This is the fourth post in our series of guest blog posts highlighting PeerJ PrePrint authors and for this post we spoke to Robert Gay, a paleontologist, biologist, and high school science teacher (at Mission Heights Preparatory High School). He has published 4 articles in PeerJ PrePrints.

Can you tell our readers a little bit about your research area?

I’m a paleontologist and I am mainly interested in the rise of the dinosaurs. Specifically I am studying the Triassic/Jurassic transition on the Colorado Plateau, looking at the Late Triassic and Early Jurassic Periods to see how dinosaurs went from a relatively rare component of the ecosystem in the Late Triassic to filling many of the terrestrial niches in the Early Jurassic. Looking at the community structures in both the Chinle and Kayenta Formations of the American Southwest can help shed some light on the answers to these questions.

Why did you decide to submit the draft of your article(s) to PeerJ PrePrints?

I feel that preprints are a great way to communicate your findings rapidly. While PeerJ is among many journals that are working to reduce unnecessary delays in getting information out with rapid decisions and fast but rigorous peer review, there is still a lag between initial discovery and formal publication. In two of the three most recent PrePrints I’ve been an author on we have been reporting on the first occurrence of a fossil animal from an area. By putting out a PrePrint we’ve let the rest of the vertebrate paleontology community know that “hey, we’ve got something neat!” The precise details might change (for example, on our Crosbysaurus PrePrint (see preprint, or peer-reviewed version) we drastically revised and refined the stratigraphy from the first version to the peer-reviewed one) but the main idea is still the same. We also wanted to solicit formal feedback from our peers on where we could improve our manuscript.

What are the benefits to you personally of publishing your work as a PeerJ PrePrint prior to any formal peer review process?

I feel like there have been several notable benefits to myself and my coauthors in choosing to publish PrePrints with PeerJ. As I mentioned earlier, one of our goals is for rapid communication of new discoveries. In paleontology the professional conference and associated abstract volume used to serve in this role. Now, however the major vertebrate paleontology conference, the Society of Vertebrate Paleontologists’ annual meeting abstract deadline is six months before the actual conference. Many of the abstracts appearing in this year’s abstract volume have already been formally published because the publishing cycle has been shortened in many journals. Obviously this outlet can’t serve as a rapid communication device in this digital age. PrePrints, on the other hand, fill exactly that role.

Another benefit is that it has allowed my coauthors and I to get valuable feedback before the formal peer review stage. While we all like to ask our friends for our opinions on projects, having a PrePrint allowed us to get actionable feedback from a wider group of colleagues in a more formal manner. With an actual draft manuscript that was easy to read our friends and colleagues were able to give much more targeted advice which our manuscripts have greatly benefited from!

A final benefit that has come to my students and our program is one that I didn’t initially foresee: public exposure. Our Crosbysaurus PrePrint got picked up by the local news and NPR affiliate, which we were able to use to help get grant funding to continue our work. All of this came before the final peer-reviewed publication. During the presentation to the funding agency I could point to a specific piece of work, the PrePrint, and show that my students and I weren’t just promising things but we could actually deliver on them. With such a young program this was especially important to us, and it helped get our field school started this past summer. I feel it would have been a much harder sell for a high school teacher to come in and ask for money to take students out to do research if we didn’t have a PrePrint available.

What would you say to anyone who had any doubts about publishing their draft article as a PeerJ PrePrint first?

The recent conversation on the value of PrePrints for biologists and paleontologists has been really a breath of fresh air. it is very refreshing to see more and more of my colleagues decide to make PrePrints part of their publishing routine. I do understand some of the concerns that people have voiced. Andy Farke, another vertebrate paleontologist and advocate of Open Access science (including PrePrints) has talked about how most of these fears are unfounded. While the concerns of being scooped, having low-quality work being disseminated, and the concern about being wrong are all understandable I side with Andy. PrePrints prevent scooping because now there is a formal, citable record of who made what claim or discovery first. Having low quality work published has been happening for decades in various journals. Paleontologists know which journals tend to publish low-quality work. It isn’t exactly a secret. PrePrints actually help point out flaws in papers with the comment/feedback system – if a reader has a question about something it can be answered right away and the entire process is open. The worry about being wrong is, to me, an odd one. I teach my students that science isn’t about being correct but about interpreting the data the best we can and making changes to our interpretations as we see appropriate. With PeerJ PrePrints the entire revision process is open, so students and other scientists can see how interpretations have changed. Multiple versions of a PrePrint don’t indicate that someone is “wrong” or has failed an experiment but rather that the best interpretation of the data has changed. Considering how many retraction “scandals” we’ve heard about from big name publishers over the past few years, wouldn’t a documented change in interpretation before going to peer review be better than having to issue a retraction?

All in all I encourage my peers to participate in the culture of publishing PrePrints. It keeps data open, it makes thought processes visible to colleagues and students, and helps promote positive feedback from all members of the community. It establishes formal priority for claims, ideas, methods, and discoveries. If you teach, it offers a tool to show how science isn’t an unchanging collection of facts (a thought that is all to prevalent). I am a strong believer in PrePrints and I hope to see more of my colleagues embracing it as well. If you haven’t yet, why not try it as part of the path for your next publication?

We thank Rob for this guest post and we encourage you to submit the next article you are working on to PeerJ PrePrints. If, you are a paleontologist, then check out our Paleontology preprints.