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bioRxiv

Cold Spring Harbor Laboratory
United States
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About

Launched: 2013
Record Updated: Apr 25, 2024
Repository service
bioRxiv (pronounced "bio-archive") is a free online archive and distribution service for unpublished preprints in the life sciences. It is operated by Cold Spring Harbor Laboratory, a not-for-profit research and educational institution. By posting preprints on bioRxiv, authors are able to make their findings immediately available to the scientific community and receive feedback on draft manuscripts before they are submitted to journals.

Mission

bioRxiv and medRxiv are freely accessible online platforms that accelerate the advance of scientific knowledge by enabling scientists worldwide to share research results without cost or the delays typical of traditional journal publication.

Key Achievements

In 10 years, bioRxiv and medRxiv have changed how scientists communicate and journals operate. They have demonstrated that the distribution of new research results can be effectively decoupled from their evaluation, accelerating awareness of advances, giving impetus to the growth of open science, and encouraging the emergence of new forms of peer review and research assessment. These changes were particularly evident during the COVID-19 pandemic, when the rapid, open sharing of new insights internationally became critical in understanding and addressing the etiology, epidemiology, and treatment of the disease.

Technical Attributes

Maintenance Status

Actively maintained

Technical Documentation

Implemented
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Open API

Implemented

Open Data Statement

Implemented
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Content Licensing

Authors retain copyright and choose from several distribution/reuse options under which to make the article available (CC BY, CC BY-NC, CC BY-ND, CC BY-NC-ND, CC0, or no reuse). By posting on bioRxiv, authors explicitly consent to text mining of their work (e.g., by search engines or researchers).

Hosting Options & Service Providers

Hosting Strategy

Not applicable

Service Providers

What other tools and projects does your project interact with?

Crossref, National Library of Medicine, Altmetric, ORCID, Hypothes.is, eLife, sciety, Review Commons, PCI, PREreview, preLights, SciScore, Paperplayer

Community Engagement

Community Engagement

Implemented

Organizational Commitment to Community Engagement

bioRxiv Affiliates are members of the scientific community who provide feedback on the service, act as advocates, and help in screening material submitted. List of affiliates can be found here: https://www.biorxiv.org/content/about-biorxiv

Engagement with Values Frameworks

Integrated the FAST principles for preprint peer review into our commenting policy here: https://connect.biorxiv.org/news/2022/03/21/commenting_on_preprints

Additional Information

Organizational History

No change

Organizational Structure

Business or Ownership Model

Fiscal sponsorship (non-profit)

Full-time Staff

5.0

Funding

Primary Funding Source

Contributions

Funding Needs

The Chan Zuckerberg Initiative and Cold Spring Harbor Laboratory provide support for the operation of the servers at their current scale. Diversifying and extending this base of support will enable (1) vigorous promotion and advocacy for the use of preprints in underserved disciplines and research communities worldwide that will increase the volume of preprints; (2) integration with more journals to provide authors with more choices for manuscript transfer; (3) the development of automated tools to assist manuscript screening at scale; (4) the application of technologies that enhance the accessibility of preprints among broader audiences; (5) the adoption of new and improved technologies that enable the servers to operate more cost-effectively as they continue to grow.
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