Interview with a PrePrint Author – Johnson Thie

We launched PeerJ PrePrints just two weeks ago, and so we were pleased to see that the second submission we received was a preprint that extended the story for one of our published articles. Dr Johnson Thie from the University of Sydney was a co-author on the PeerJ article “Validation of the Emotiv EPOC® EEG gaming system for measuring research quality auditory ERPs” and also the author of PeerJ PrePprint #2 (“A marker circuit to enable recording of auditory evoked potential using a wireless EEG system (EPOC) and a portable computer”). Being able to follow up on a ‘formal’ publication with a related, but more informal ‘preprint’ publication is a huge advantage of preprints, and so we wanted to talk to Dr Thie to learn about his reasons for doing so.

PJ: Perhaps you can briefly explain the research you published in PeerJ and PeerJ PrePrints?

JT: I am involved in electrophysiology, biomedical engineering and cognitive science. My part has been mainly in the engineering side where I develop instruments and perform signal analysis. My focus is to make physiological recording on human/animals non-invasive, easier and reliable.

I’ve been working on this particular project for about one year although I’ve been in this field for 10 years in both industry and academia.

PJ: You submitted an article to the PeerJ journal and then followed up with a preprint to PeerJ PrePrints. Can you explain why?

JT: The paper submitted to PeerJ was a research paper while the paper to PeerJ PrePrints was more about some of the technical work that was involved in the research.

PJ: And what advantages did the preprint server provide you?

A shorter time to publication. A suitable location to publish information that is more complex than a blog post. And the fact that having a preprint allows people to cite the work.

I already had a relevant paper published in PeerJ, and the second paper which extended/supplemented the first paper was a suitable fit for PeerJ PrePrints.

PJ: What was your impression of the PrePrint process?

JT: Flexibility in the formatting is nice. Perhaps in future, a latex style file/template can be provided to make formatting uniform and still easy.

PJ: And what was your experience of the overall PeerJ process?

JT: My experience has been positive. The submission process was similar to other journals. The flexibility in formatting was nice so I didn’t have to change the sections/headings and bibliography styles. It was easy to submit a paper, less hassle in formatting and a quicker process.

The review process for the PeerJ journal was quick, and the feedback from the reviewers was generally positive. The approval process for the PeerJ PrePrints publication only took 1-2 days.

The overall speed was quick, especially from acceptance to publication. In other journals, the time from acceptance to publication could take 1-3 months. If anything, it was the quick process to publication which surprised me the most at PeerJ.

PJ: Did any of your colleagues express anything to you about your publication with PeerJ PrePrints?

JT: They are glad that the technical work of the research paper was published in PeerJ PrePrints since people have sent them various inquiries regarding the instruments that I developed for the research work.

PJ: Now that you have been through the process, what is the advantage for an author to publish their work Open Access and with PeerJ?

JT: Open access is particularly beneficial for people in industry who are not affiliated to a university and hence have no free access to journals. PeerJ in particular has a lower cost than the open access options provided by more established journals.

PJ: Would you submit again?

JT: Yes I would submit suitable papers again given the reasons stated earlier.

PJ: Great news, we are glad that you enjoyed your experience! Thank you for your time.

Authors wishing to experience the future of publishing can now submit PeerJ PrePrint articles at https://peerj.com/preprints and they can submit PeerJ journal articles, for formal peer review, at https://peerj.com/