Nature Precedings
Encyclopedia
Nature Precedings is an open access electronic preprint
repository
of scholarly work in the fields of biomedical sciences, chemistry
, and earth sciences. Submissions to Nature Precedings are not peer review
ed. The content is curated and developed by the Nature Publishing Group
, publishers of the journal Nature
and other scientific journal
s.
under the direction of Timo Hannay, its director for web publishing. The British Library
, the European Bioinformatics Institute
, Science Commons
, and the Wellcome Trust
are partners. Nature Precedings supports the Open Archives Initiative Protocol for Metadata Harvesting (OAI-PMH, version 2). Although content is solely author-copyright
ed, it can be used under the terms of the Creative Commons Attribution License, versions 2.5 or 3.0.
Documents that are manuscripts, preliminary reports, white paper
s, or presentations reporting work in the fields of biology
, chemistry
, earth science
s, or medicine
(except clinical trial
results) can be submitted for posting. Physics
and mathematics
are excluded as they are already covered by the arXiv
preprint server. Submissions can be revised after posting, although the original submission remains as such and revisions are made available for access as newer versions. Submitted documents are not reviewed by editors or experts, and "genuine contributions from qualified scientists" are accepted for immediate posting. Non-scientific or pseudo-scientific work is rejected. Submitters are expected to have copyrights and appropriate permissions for material presented in the submitted documents. Opportunity for non-anonymous, informal peer review is available through a commenting system on the Nature Precedings website.
A Nature Precedings preprint is cited like a traditional journal article. However, the preprint's DOI is used as the document identifier instead of journal volume, issue and page numbers. Scientists and journal publishers have expressed concerns regarding preprint submissions to Nature Precedings and whether these submissions would lead to violations of the Ingelfinger Rule
, a policy in which journals will not publish a manuscript if its findings have been reported elsewhere. Posting of documents as preprints may disqualify them, or the information presented in them, from being published in other journals.
Preprint
A preprint is a draft of a scientific paper that has not yet been published in a peer-reviewed scientific journal.-Role:Publication of manuscripts in a peer-reviewed journal often takes weeks, months or even years from the time of initial submission, because manuscripts must undergo extensive...
repository
Repository
Repository commonly refers to a location for storage, often for safety or preservation.Repository may also refer to:* Repository clone, concept from distributed revision control...
of scholarly work in the fields of biomedical sciences, chemistry
Chemistry
Chemistry is the science of matter, especially its chemical reactions, but also its composition, structure and properties. Chemistry is concerned with atoms and their interactions with other atoms, and particularly with the properties of chemical bonds....
, and earth sciences. Submissions to Nature Precedings are not peer review
Peer review
Peer review is a process of self-regulation by a profession or a process of evaluation involving qualified individuals within the relevant field. Peer review methods are employed to maintain standards, improve performance and provide credibility...
ed. The content is curated and developed by the Nature Publishing Group
Nature Publishing Group
Nature Publishing Group is an international publishing company that publishes academic journals, online databases, and services across the life, physical, chemical and applied sciences and clinical medicine...
, publishers of the journal Nature
Nature (journal)
Nature, first published on 4 November 1869, is ranked the world's most cited interdisciplinary scientific journal by the Science Edition of the 2010 Journal Citation Reports...
and other scientific journal
Scientific journal
In academic publishing, a scientific journal is a periodical publication intended to further the progress of science, usually by reporting new research. There are thousands of scientific journals in publication, and many more have been published at various points in the past...
s.
Description
Nature Precedings was started in June 2007 by the Nature Publishing GroupNature Publishing Group
Nature Publishing Group is an international publishing company that publishes academic journals, online databases, and services across the life, physical, chemical and applied sciences and clinical medicine...
under the direction of Timo Hannay, its director for web publishing. The British Library
British Library
The British Library is the national library of the United Kingdom, and is the world's largest library in terms of total number of items. The library is a major research library, holding over 150 million items from every country in the world, in virtually all known languages and in many formats,...
, the European Bioinformatics Institute
European Bioinformatics Institute
The European Bioinformatics Institute is a centre for research and services in bioinformatics, and is part of European Molecular Biology Laboratory...
, Science Commons
Science Commons
Science Commons is a Creative Commons project for designing strategies and tools for faster, more efficient web-enabled scientific research. The organization identifies unnecessary barriers to research, crafts policy guidelines and legal agreements to lower those barriers, and develops technology...
, and the Wellcome Trust
Wellcome Trust
The Wellcome Trust was established in 1936 as an independent charity funding research to improve human and animal health. With an endowment of around £13.9 billion, it is the United Kingdom's largest non-governmental source of funds for biomedical research...
are partners. Nature Precedings supports the Open Archives Initiative Protocol for Metadata Harvesting (OAI-PMH, version 2). Although content is solely author-copyright
Copyright
Copyright is a legal concept, enacted by most governments, giving the creator of an original work exclusive rights to it, usually for a limited time...
ed, it can be used under the terms of the Creative Commons Attribution License, versions 2.5 or 3.0.
Documents that are manuscripts, preliminary reports, white paper
White paper
A white paper is an authoritative report or guide that helps solve a problem. White papers are used to educate readers and help people make decisions, and are often requested and used in politics, policy, business, and technical fields. In commercial use, the term has also come to refer to...
s, or presentations reporting work in the fields of biology
Biology
Biology is a natural science concerned with the study of life and living organisms, including their structure, function, growth, origin, evolution, distribution, and taxonomy. Biology is a vast subject containing many subdivisions, topics, and disciplines...
, chemistry
Chemistry
Chemistry is the science of matter, especially its chemical reactions, but also its composition, structure and properties. Chemistry is concerned with atoms and their interactions with other atoms, and particularly with the properties of chemical bonds....
, earth science
Earth science
Earth science is an all-embracing term for the sciences related to the planet Earth. It is arguably a special case in planetary science, the Earth being the only known life-bearing planet. There are both reductionist and holistic approaches to Earth sciences...
s, or medicine
Medicine
Medicine is the science and art of healing. It encompasses a variety of health care practices evolved to maintain and restore health by the prevention and treatment of illness....
(except clinical trial
Clinical trial
Clinical trials are a set of procedures in medical research and drug development that are conducted to allow safety and efficacy data to be collected for health interventions...
results) can be submitted for posting. Physics
Physics
Physics is a natural science that involves the study of matter and its motion through spacetime, along with related concepts such as energy and force. More broadly, it is the general analysis of nature, conducted in order to understand how the universe behaves.Physics is one of the oldest academic...
and mathematics
Mathematics
Mathematics is the study of quantity, space, structure, and change. Mathematicians seek out patterns and formulate new conjectures. Mathematicians resolve the truth or falsity of conjectures by mathematical proofs, which are arguments sufficient to convince other mathematicians of their validity...
are excluded as they are already covered by the arXiv
ArXiv
The arXiv |Chi]], χ) is an archive for electronic preprints of scientific papers in the fields of mathematics, physics, astronomy, computer science, quantitative biology, statistics, and quantitative finance which can be accessed online. In many fields of mathematics and physics, almost all...
preprint server. Submissions can be revised after posting, although the original submission remains as such and revisions are made available for access as newer versions. Submitted documents are not reviewed by editors or experts, and "genuine contributions from qualified scientists" are accepted for immediate posting. Non-scientific or pseudo-scientific work is rejected. Submitters are expected to have copyrights and appropriate permissions for material presented in the submitted documents. Opportunity for non-anonymous, informal peer review is available through a commenting system on the Nature Precedings website.
A Nature Precedings preprint is cited like a traditional journal article. However, the preprint's DOI is used as the document identifier instead of journal volume, issue and page numbers. Scientists and journal publishers have expressed concerns regarding preprint submissions to Nature Precedings and whether these submissions would lead to violations of the Ingelfinger Rule
Ingelfinger rule
In scientific publishing, the Ingelfinger rule stipulates that a scientist may not publish the same original research in two different outlets. It was created in 1969 by Franz J. Ingelfinger, who at the time was editor of The New England Journal of Medicine , as an effort to prevent NEJM from...
, a policy in which journals will not publish a manuscript if its findings have been reported elsewhere. Posting of documents as preprints may disqualify them, or the information presented in them, from being published in other journals.
Growth
Fifty-five preprints were posted in the first 15 days of Nature Precedings. Of those, 26 were submitted as manuscripts and 29 as posters/presentations. Corresponding numbers for the first 50 days are 89, 48 and 41, and for the first six months, 303, 227 and 76. About 500 and 650 preprints were respectively published during the first and second years. The growth of the repository can be tracked graphically on the Scientific Commons page for Nature Precedings.Coverage of content in popular media
Besides being blogged about, the content of Nature Precedings articles occasionally gets reported in the popular media. An example is this Fox News report.Abstracting and indexing
- OAIsterOAIsterOAIster was a project of the Digital Library Production Service of the University of Michigan University Library. Its goal is to create a collection of freely available, previously difficult-to-access, academically-oriented digital resources that are easily searchable by anyone...
- ScienceResearch.com
- Scientific Commons
- ScirusScirusScirus is a comprehensive science-specific search engine. Like CiteSeerX and Google Scholar, it is focused on scientific information. Unlike CiteSeerX, Scirus is not only for computer sciences and IT and not all of the results include full text. It also sends its scientific search results to...
- ScopusScopusScopus, officially named SciVerse Scopus, is a bibliographic database containing abstracts and citations for academic journal articles. It covers nearly 18,000 titles from over 5,000 international publishers, including coverage of 16,500 peer-reviewed journals in the scientific, technical, medical,...
- Thomson Scientific WebPlus