Publications are the cornerstone of scientific communication
Science publications are the primary drivers for disseminating research to the scientific community. Historically, publications have been viewed as a product from a journal. Researchers submit their manuscript to a publisher for consideration to be disseminated in their journal as a publication. Publishers sit at the top of a hierarchy where they control the flow of information that they see as worthy or significant of being shared with a wider community. With information controlled by a singular entity, “getting published” is the prize all researchers seek - to share their work and to advance their careers because publications are an academics’ "currency."
What is a publication?
The word "publication" connotes the act of publishing a book, periodical, paper, etc. The prefix (public) means "done, perceived, or existing in open view." The suffix (ation) means "an action or process." Hence, publication signifies "the action or process of making public." Any process where ideas are made public can be considered a "publication."
The technical definition of a publication is "the distribution of copies or phonorecords of a work to the public by sale or other transfer of ownership, or by rental, lease, or lending. The offering to distribute copies or phonorecords to a group of persons for purposes of further distribution, public performance, or public display constitutes publication."
Under copyright law, any work made public and fixed in a tangible medium is a publication. Authors retain publication rights as long as they do not transfer these rights to an entity where the work has been made public, such as a publisher.
What is researchers’ association with the term "publication"?
The relationship researchers have with the word publication was born with the origin of the publication system in the 17th and 18th centuries with the advent of the first scientific journal, Philosophical Transactions and Journal des Scavanes. Researchers claimed rights to their work by publishing their research in journals, an act that concretized their material in a fixed medium and permanently linked their names to the research in the public domain.
However, in the Web 2.0 digital age, print publications are an aging entity. The traditional viewpoint that "a publication" is solely an output from a publisher is outdated, and, as described above, technically incorrect.
Considering the true definition of a publication, publishing research is simply a process that links researchers to ideas and results presented in manuscripts. The process certifies that the authors completed the work, discovered the results, and shared the material with the community at a point in time. Any method of validating what research was conducted and when it was made public allows researchers to claim rights and protect their work from being scooped. Thus, the significance of the word "publication" for researchers lies in the symbolism of the publication action.
Can preprints be considered publications?
Preprints are drafts of scientific manuscripts that haven’t been accepted by a publisher for publication in a journal. They are the most flexible medium researchers have to disseminate their work. Researchers can choose when and where to share their material online without having to get approval and be accepted by a publisher. This can be an arduously slow and sometimes biased process. Preprints are made public online through dissemination in a preprint repository. It is common to say preprints have been "posted online." But technically, they have been "published online" because it is a piece of work that has been made public in a fixed tangible medium, the preprint preprint repository. Therefore, any preprint should be referred to as a "preprint publication."
Who owns the copyright to a preprint publication?
As the original creators of the work, researchers hold the copyright. However, in most cases, if researchers submit their work to a publisher, the publisher requires transfership of the copyright from the researchers to the publisher.
The general practice of preprint servers is that they do not require copyright transfership. This may vary between servers, but in large, preprint servers allow authors to retain copyright control.
For example, at Research Square, preprints are published under a CC-BY 4.0 license. The license allows authors to retain full copyright for their work. Also, readers are able to reuse the content under the rules of the CC-BY license.
A publication paradigm shift
Scientists’ relationship to the term publication has existed for over 400 years. The semantics of what a publication historically has meant is fully ingrained in the scientific community.
In the 21st century, broadscale preprinting of research is a major paradigm shift that is increasingly being embraced year over year. Since 2018, preprints indexed in EuropePMC have a growth rate that exceeds 1,100%, in contrast to new publications cataloged in MEDLINE that only grew 115% over the same period.