The eLife Model: Comparing eLife Assessments across revisions | Inside eLife | eLife

When an article is first published as a Reviewed Preprint in eLife, it includes an eLife Assessment written by the editors and reviewers. This assessment uses a common vocabulary to describe the significance of the findings and the strength of the evidence reported in the article. This approach promotes the assessment of research at the article level, rather than relying on journal names or journal-level metrics.

Following publication of the first version of a Reviewed Preprint, authors can choose to publish their article as a regular journal article (Version of Record; VOR) and mark the end of the process. However, many authors revise their work before requesting a VOR. When authors revise, the editors and reviewers reassess the work and consider updates to the eLife Assessment and the terms included in it.

In this article we report how the terms used to describe significance of findings and strength of evidence change between the first and final versions of articles, and how often authors revise their work.