technical paper
Early Experiences of the Preprint Overlay Journal JMIRx
keywords:
publication pathways
peer review process and models
preprints
Objective In 2019, JMIR Publications announced the
creation of a new series of journals, which are called
superjournals, with JMIRx-Med the initial journal launched
in that new journal series. 1
Superjournals are a type of overlay journal that sit on top of
preprint servers, offering rapid peer review and formal
publication of revised preprints. 1
Design An editorial prospecting platform (XDash) that
invites preprint authors from medRxiv or bioRxiv was
developed (Figure 5). All authors received an online survey
that asked about motivations on why they posted the
preprint, plans to submit to a journal, and whether they
would be interested in a peer review of their preprint.
Authors of new preprints were contacted as soon as their
preprints were posted; no reminders were sent. Only
preprints that were not already under peer review at a journal
were eligible for consideration for JMIRx. After the peer
review process, all peer review reports, author responses, and
revised and accepted preprints are published in a JMIRx
journal and deposited in PubMed Central/PubMed and
institutional repositories of member institutions or, via the
Manuscript eXchange Marketplace, offered to other journals
for publication.
Results Between December 19, 2019, and March 9, 2022,
11,143 responses were received. In the same period, 113,724
preprints were posted (response rate of 9.7%, although it is
not known how many emails were actually extracted correctly
and delivered). Forty-five percent of respondents (5011)
submitted their manuscripts to a journal immediately after
deposit as a preprint; for 1288 of respondents (11.6%),
journals deposited a submitted manuscript on the preprint
server on behalf of the authors. Together, these 2 groups
represented 56.5% of respondents (n = 6299), whose preprint
was already under peer review. The remaining 4844
respondents (43.5%) had not submitted their preprint to a
journal yet. A total of 869 (7.8%) had no plans to submit to a
journal, 3409 preprint authors (30.6%) planned to submit
the preprint to a journal, and 1976 (17.7%) expressed interest
in a peer review. A total of 7676 authors (68.9%) also
indicated they absolutely need to publish the preprint in a
journal with an impact factor, and 6560 authors (58.9%)
indicated they wanted their publication indexed in PubMed.
Conclusions The JMIRx concept is welcomed by some
authors looking for a rapid publication venue.
References
1. Eysenbach G. Celebrating 20 years of open access
and innovation at JMIR Publications. J Med Internet Res.
2019;21(12):e17578. doi:10.2196/17578
2. Stern BM, O’Shea EK. A proposal for the future of
scientific publishing in the life sciences. PLoS Biol.
2019;17(2):e3000116. doi:10.1371/journal.pbio.3000116
Conflict of Interest Disclosures Gunther Eysenbach has an
equity stake in and receives a salary from the publisher.