New Preprint Server Aims to Be Biologists' Answer to Physicists' arXiv | Science/AAAS | News

"A well-known research lab is throwing its weight behind an idea that some biologists say is ripe for their field: a free website that will post raw manuscripts online before they’re submitted to a journal. BioRxiv, launched yesterday by the nonprofit Cold Spring Harbor Laboratory (CSHL), aims to be biologists' version of arXiv, the popular preprint server where physicists have shared their draft manuscripts for more than 20 years. The goal is to speed the dissemination of research and give scientists a way to get feedback on their papers before they are formally peer-reviewed, says John Inglis, CSHL Press executive director ... It will be free to submit a paper or to read it in bioRxiv, Inglis says. CSHL is paying the costs of the service (he declines to specify them) but hopes that, like arXiv, it will ultimately attract contributions. Although anybody can submit a paper, not everything will be posted: A group of more than 40 'affiliate' scientists have agreed to screen submissions to 'assure us that this is real science,' Inglis says.  Another limitation is that bioRxiv is for life sciences, not medicine, so it will not publish clinical trials or other research that is 'medically relevant,' Inglis says. Human genetic data could be posted, however.  The site debuts with a handful of papers and a few unusual features. For example, contributors will not only tag their paper with the scientific field, but must also mark it as 'New Results,' 'Confirmatory Results,' or 'Contradictory Results,' depending on whether it is an advance or confirms or contradicts previous experiments. Researchers can post revised versions of the paper and add links to the published paper ..."