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The Pivotal Role of Preprint Platforms in Disseminating COVID-19 Research: A Global Investigation of Country-Level Activities

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Leveraging Generative Intelligence in Digital Libraries: Towards Human-Machine Collaboration (ICADL 2023)

Part of the book series: Lecture Notes in Computer Science ((LNCS,volume 14458))

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Abstract

Researchers initiated immediate research on COVID-19 following the declaration of the pandemic, but the traditional cycle of scientific information distribution was ill-equipped to share rapid outputs. Preprints provided a platform for immediate sharing of outputs, leading many COVID-19 studies in medical biology and clinical medicine to be submitted in this format. Preprints were collected from bioRxiv and medRxiv, and metadata of published preprints were collected from PubMed. We investigated the number of published preprints submitted by country and metadata for the peer review period for COVID-19 and non-COVID-19 preprints. Our research found preprints from 128 countries. Submissions peaked in May 2020, five months following the declaration of the pandemic. Using the Mann-Whitney U test, we found the peer review period for COVID-19 published preprints was significantly shorter than for non-COVID-19 preprints. The research suggests many countries have an in-built system that facilitates swift and continuous responses to crises in the scientific community.

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Acknowledgments

This work was supported by JSPS KAKENHI Grant Numbers JP19K12707, JP20K12569, JP22K12737, and ROIS NII Open Collaborative Research 2023 (23FS01).

Author information

Authors and Affiliations

  1. Tsurumi University, Yokohama, Kanagawa, 2308501, Japan

    Hiroyuki Tsunoda & Rie Kominami

  2. National Institute of Informatics, Tokyo, 1018430, Japan

    Yuan Sun, Masaki Nishizawa & Kou Amano

  3. National Science Library, Chinese Academy of Sciences, Beijing, 100190, China

    Xiaomin Liu

Authors
  1. Hiroyuki Tsunoda
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  2. Yuan Sun
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  3. Masaki Nishizawa
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  4. Xiaomin Liu
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  5. Kou Amano
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  6. Rie Kominami
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Corresponding author

Correspondence to Hiroyuki Tsunoda .

Editor information

Editors and Affiliations

  1. Nanyang Technological University, Singapore, Singapore

    Dion H. Goh

  2. Academia Sinica, Taipei, Taiwan

    Shu-Jiun Chen

  3. Mahidol University, Tambon Salaya, Amphoe Phutthamonthon, Thailand

    Suppawong Tuarob

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© 2023 The Author(s), under exclusive license to Springer Nature Singapore Pte Ltd.

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Tsunoda, H., Sun, Y., Nishizawa, M., Liu, X., Amano, K., Kominami, R. (2023). The Pivotal Role of Preprint Platforms in Disseminating COVID-19 Research: A Global Investigation of Country-Level Activities. In: Goh, D.H., Chen, SJ., Tuarob, S. (eds) Leveraging Generative Intelligence in Digital Libraries: Towards Human-Machine Collaboration. ICADL 2023. Lecture Notes in Computer Science, vol 14458. Springer, Singapore. https://doi.org/10.1007/978-981-99-8088-8_7

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  • DOI: https://doi.org/10.1007/978-981-99-8088-8_7

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  • Publisher Name: Springer, Singapore

  • Print ISBN: 978-981-99-8087-1

  • Online ISBN: 978-981-99-8088-8

  • eBook Packages: Computer ScienceComputer Science (R0)

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