Preprints and the Future of Scholarship

Opportunities to share scholarly work in the form of preprints (drafts of papers in advance of publication) have grown exponentially in recent years. New discipline-based preprint servers are joining long-standing repositories, offering scholars many opportunities to share their work. What is the impact of this proliferation of preprints on science, research, and critical inquiry? How have these new outlets for sharing scholarship changed the practice of researchers, scholars, and students?  

Join us for a special Open Access Week event celebrating preprints and the democratization of scholarship. We will discuss the history of the preprint, its role in accelerating the pace of scholarship, and the future of scholarship with more results and inquiries being shared in new and evolving mediums. The event will feature a keynote from Dr. Steinn Sigurdsson, Scientific Director of arXiv, followed by a panel discussion by scholars engaged in the act of creating, sharing, and disseminating preprints. Attendees will be encouraged to share their experience with preprints and their own work. Light refreshments will be served. 

Keynote Presenter:

Dr. Steinn Sigurdsson 
Scientific Director, arXiv
Professor of Astrophysics
Pennsylvania State University

Dr. Sigurdsson did his doctorate in theoretical physics at the California Institute of Technology in Pasadena, California. He then worked as a researcher at the University of California at Santa Cruz, and the Institute of Astronomy and King’s College at Cambridge University in England. Steinn is a member of the Institute for Gravitation and the Cosmos and the Center for Exoplanets and Habitable Worlds, and the Penn State Astrobiology Research Center. He works on a range of topics in astrophysics and related areas, ranging from cosmology, large scale dynamics and black holes, to formation and evolution of planets, and the prospects for discovering non-terrestrial life. He has been a member of the board of the Aspen Center for Physics since 2010 and is currently a Trustee of the Aspen Center for Physics. He was appointed the Scientific Director of arXiv in 2017. 

Panelists: 

Dr. John D. Norton
Co-founder of the PhilSci-Archive, a preprint server for the disciplines of Philosophy of Science  
Distinguished Professor and Chair
Department of History and Philosophy of Science
University of Pittsburgh

Dr. Ansuman Chattopadhyay
Creator of search.bioPreprint
Assistant Director
Molecular Biology Information Service
Health Sciences Library System, University of Pittsburgh

Moderator:

Dr. Lauren B. Collister
Director
Office of Scholarly Communication and Publishing
University Library System
University of Pittsburgh