1) preLights is a new community platform for early-career researchers to write engaging summaries and highlight key findings from preprint articles. 2) The summaries are in a "News & Views" style format that includes the preprint information, a short summary, key findings, questions for the author, and the author's response. 3) The goal is to build a resource that helps the scientific community stay up-to-date with the growing number of preprints and champions open science.

1. preLights: a new community
platform for preprint
highlights
Máté Pálfy (preLights Community Manager)
The Company of Biologists
OpenCon Oxford 30 November 2018

2. The Company of Biologists
Our charitable activities
Facilitating scientific meetings and communities
Providing travel grants for young researchers
Supporting and funding research societies
Not for profit publisher run by distinguished practising scientists
Supporting biologists, inspiring biology

4. Preprints
(Source: PrePubmed.org)
The growth of preprints in the biological sciences
Version of a scientific paper that precedes publication in a peer-reviewed journal
and is uploaded to a public server

5. Benefits of preprints
For Authors
- Rapid dissemination of results
- Early feedback on work from community
- Establishment of ‘priority’ for a particular finding
- Preprint can be referenced
For the scientific community
- Earlier access to new findings & technologies
(but also negative results, reports on flaws and confirmatory results)
- Freely accessible
- Opens up dialogue about work

6. Some challenges with preprints
Difficult to keep up with
preprint literature
Public commenting on preprints is
not happening
(Source: PrePubmed.org)
The growth of preprints in the biological sciences

7. Early-career researchers are at the heart of preLights
Building a resource of preprint
highlights for the community
Championing preprints
& open science

8. Early-career researchers are at the heart of preLights
Building a resource of preprint
highlights for the community
Championing preprints
& open science

9. Preprint information
& link
Short engaging summary of
the preprint
preLighter profile (link)
Background information
preLights: News & Views type of articles for
preprints

10. Key findings
preLighter’s take
on preprint
Questions to the
preprint author
preLights: News & Views type of articles for
preprints

11. Author’s response to questions
preLights: News & Views type of articles for
preprints
preLights posts are linked
in bioRxiv
Coming soon:
indexing in Europe PMC

12. preLights post referenced in response to
reviewers

13. preLights articles cover a broad range of fields

14. Early-career researchers are at the heart of preLights
Building a resource of preprint
highlights for the community
Championing preprints
& open science

15. Championing preprints & open science
Meeting up at conferences
Discussions, giving feedback to
each other
Commentaries and blog posts

16. We help preLighters build their profile

17. We are promoting preLights in CoB journals (eTOC,
Snippets), The Node (monthly post)…

18. So far the preLights ‘experiment’ is encouraging
Initial stats on preLights:
• Launched end of February 2018
• 90 ‘preLighters’
• >200 posts after 8 months
• 30% of posts feature an author’s response
• ~2000 views per week
• >2000 followers on twitter
• Feedback from community has been hugely positive
“Wonderful! This is a game changer” “It looks fantastic!”
“I do like the ‘Author’s Response’ section” “great initiative”
“Showing how preprints allow for the evolution of the scientific publishing model”

19. Apply to join the team of preLighters!