CASRAI Dictionary

Tag: biorxiv impact factor

  • BioRxiv ISSN Explained: Why It’s Not a Journal

    BioRxiv holds ISSN 2692-8205, but an ISSN is a serial-registration number, not proof of peer review. BioRxiv is a preprint repository, not a peer-reviewed journal: it has no Scimago Journal Rank, no Scopus record and no impact factor, because those metrics apply only to indexed journals, and bioRxiv does not perform peer review.

    BioRxiv is an open-access preprint repository for the biological sciences, launched in November 2013 by John Inglis and Richard Sever and now operated by the nonprofit openRxiv. Confusion about its status is common because bioRxiv looks and behaves like a journal platform — it has a citable DOI, a formal ISSN and a Wikipedia entry — while lacking the editorial infrastructure that “indexing” actually measures.

    Does bioRxiv have an ISSN, and what does that prove?

    BioRxiv is registered with ISSN 2692-8205, listed in the ISSN Portal and cross-referenced in the NLM Catalog under record ID 101680187, where the U.S. National Library of Medicine lists its electronic ISSN and title abbreviation “bioRxiv: the preprint server for biology”. An ISSN is issued by the ISSN International Centre to any continuing resource — journals, newspapers, monograph series, and repositories that publish serially.

    Holding an ISSN confirms only that a publication is a recognised, ongoing serial with a stable identity. It carries no implication about peer review, editorial oversight, or scholarly indexing. Many predatory journals and informal newsletters also carry valid ISSNs, which is precisely why the number is frequently mistaken for a quality signal.

    Is bioRxiv indexed in Scimago or Scopus?

    No. Scimago Journal & Country Rank derives its rankings exclusively from the Scopus citation database, which indexes peer-reviewed journals, conference proceedings and book series — not preprint servers. Because bioRxiv preprints are not peer-reviewed at the point of posting, they fall outside Scopus’s inclusion criteria, and bioRxiv correspondingly has no Scimago Journal Rank (SJR) or quartile ranking.

    Search results that appear to show “bioRxiv” scientometric profiles, such as third-party aggregator pages listing publication and citation counts, are counting citations to the individual preprints hosted on the platform, not a journal-level metric assigned to bioRxiv itself. This distinction matters for anyone assessing where a piece of research sits in the scholarly record.

    ISSN record vs. Scimago-indexed journal
    Attribute bioRxiv (ISSN 2692-8205) Typical Scimago/Scopus-indexed journal
    Peer review before posting No — basic screening only Yes — mandatory
    ISSN Yes Yes
    Scopus/Scimago listing No Yes (if indexed)
    Impact factor / SJR None Assigned annually
    Editorial board with reject/accept decisions No Yes
    DOI registration Yes, via Crossref (prefix 10.1101) Yes, via Crossref or DataCite

    What does bioRxiv’s Wikipedia entry actually describe?

    The Wikipedia article for bioRxiv describes it plainly as “an open access preprint repository for the biological sciences”, founded by John Inglis and Richard Sever in November 2013 and inspired by arXiv, the physics and mathematics preprint server launched by Paul Ginsparg in 1991. The entry documents bioRxiv’s ownership history in detail: it was hosted by Cold Spring Harbor Laboratory (CSHL) until 11 March 2025, when ownership transferred to openRxiv, a newly formed nonprofit created to run bioRxiv and its clinical-sciences counterpart, medRxiv.

    Nowhere does the entry describe bioRxiv as a peer-reviewed journal. It explicitly notes that submissions “undergo a basic scrutinisation process, which includes safeguarding checks, an automated plagiarism screening and an assessment of appropriateness” — a moderation gate, not editorial peer review. The article also cites a 2019 eLife meta-research study (Abdill and Blekhman) finding that roughly two-thirds of bioRxiv preprints are subsequently published in peer-reviewed journals, underscoring that bioRxiv functions as a pre-publication staging ground rather than a publication venue in its own right.

    Is bioRxiv a journal, and what does “indexing” really mean?

    BioRxiv is not a journal. In scholarly-communication terms, “indexing” means a database such as Scopus, Web of Science, PubMed or the Directory of Open Access Journals has evaluated a title against inclusion criteria — regular publication schedule, peer review, editorial governance, ethical standards — and added its articles to a searchable, citation-tracked index. bioRxiv preprints are discoverable and citable via Google Scholar, PubMed Central (in some cases) and their own DOIs, but that is discovery, not journal indexing.

    • ISSN registration confirms serial identity only.
    • DOI registration (via Crossref) confirms a persistent, citable identifier for a specific preprint version.
    • Scopus/Web of Science indexing confirms a journal has passed a database’s editorial and peer-review vetting process.
    • Scimago/impact factor are journal-level citation metrics computed only for indexed journals — bioRxiv has neither.

    The bioRxiv-to-Journals (B2J) initiative, which by May 2020 allowed authors at 177 participating journals to submit a posted preprint directly into a journal’s manuscript system, illustrates the actual relationship: bioRxiv is a feeder and archive that sits upstream of formal, indexed publication, not a substitute for it. For definitions of related scholarly-communication terms, see the CASRAI Dictionary.

    Answer-first Q&A

    Does bioRxiv have an ISSN?

    Yes. BioRxiv holds ISSN 2692-8205, registered with the ISSN International Centre and cross-listed in the NLM Catalog (record 101680187). An ISSN is a serial-identification number confirming bioRxiv is a continuing publication series — it does not certify that content has passed peer review or editorial vetting.

    Is bioRxiv considered a journal?

    No. BioRxiv is a preprint repository, not a peer-reviewed journal. Submissions undergo only basic screening for plagiarism, safeguarding and appropriateness, not scientific peer review. A 2019 eLife study found roughly two-thirds of bioRxiv preprints are later published in peer-reviewed journals.

    Is bioRxiv a publisher?

    BioRxiv describes itself as an archive and distribution service, operated by the nonprofit openRxiv since March 2025 (previously hosted by Cold Spring Harbor Laboratory). It distributes manuscripts rather than publishing them editorially — authors remain free to submit the same work to a journal afterwards.

    How do you cite bioRxiv?

    Cite bioRxiv preprints using their DOI (prefix 10.1101, registered via Crossref), per bioRxiv’s own FAQ guidance. If multiple versions exist, cite the version-specific URL. ICMJE-aligned journals typically require the citation to flag the work explicitly as a preprint, unlike a peer-reviewed indexed article.

    What this means for authors and institutions

    For research administrators and institutional leaders verifying publication records, the practical takeaway is definitive: a bioRxiv deposit is not equivalent to a peer-reviewed, indexed publication for the purposes of research assessment exercises, promotion dossiers, or funder reporting, regardless of how citable or ISSN-bearing the platform is. Research administration teams verifying publication records for compliance purposes should treat a bioRxiv ISSN or DOI as evidence of deposit and discoverability, not as evidence of peer review or journal-level standing.

    Authors should continue citing bioRxiv preprints by DOI, clearly labelled as preprints, and should track whether a peer-reviewed version has since appeared in an indexed journal — since roughly two-thirds eventually do. Terminology precision matters here: conflating “has an ISSN” with “is indexed” or “is a journal” produces avoidable errors in CVs, grant reports and library catalogues. As preprint servers proliferate across disciplines, the ISSN-versus-indexing distinction bioRxiv illustrates will only become more relevant to how research administrators, publishers and funders classify the scholarly record.

  • bioRxiv Impact Factor: Why It Doesn’t Exist

    bioRxiv does not have an impact factor, and it never will unless its governance model changes: impact factors are calculated only for peer-reviewed journals indexed in Clarivate’s Journal Citation Reports, and bioRxiv is a preprint repository, not a journal. The “biorxiv impact factor” search that ~50-70 people run every month reflects a structural misunderstanding, not a missing data point — no amount of waiting will produce one.

    bioRxiv is a free preprint server for the life sciences, operated by the non-profit openRxiv and co-founded by John Inglis and Richard Sever in 2013; it distributes unpublished, non-peer-reviewed manuscripts under persistent DOIs, which is precisely the feature set that disqualifies it from journal-level citation metrics.

    What bioRxiv Is, and Why It Has No Impact Factor

    bioRxiv is a repository, not a periodical: it posts complete but unpublished manuscripts in the biological sciences without editorial peer review, typically within 72 hours of submission. Its own FAQ states this without qualification: “bioRxiv is not a journal so it has no Impact Factor.”

    The confusion is understandable. bioRxiv issues DOIs, assigns subject categories, displays usage metrics, and looks — to a casual visitor — like a journal homepage. But the Journal Impact Factor (JIF) is a specific, licensed Clarivate product calculated from citation counts to items indexed as “articles” in the Web of Science Core Collection over a two-year window. That calculation requires a defined editorial process and a stable, recurring publication vehicle. A repository that posts author-submitted manuscripts with no acceptance/rejection decision does not meet the definition of a “source publication,” so no JIF can be computed for it, at any citation volume.

    Why Preprint Servers Are Structurally Ineligible for JCR and Scimago

    Both major citation-metric systems apply the same underlying logic, even though they run on different databases. Clarivate’s Journal Citation Reports draws only from titles accepted into the Web of Science Core Collection’s journal indexes, and that acceptance process screens for editorial peer review, a named editorial board, regular publication periodicity, and bibliographic standardisation — criteria a preprint repository cannot satisfy by design. Scimago Journal Rank works from Scopus’s source list, which applies an analogous journal/serial-title gate.

    • No editorial acceptance decision — bioRxiv screens submissions for plagiarism, scope, and safety, but does not accept or reject manuscripts on scientific merit, so there is no equivalent of a journal’s editorial board.
    • No fixed publication periodicity — preprints post continuously, not in issues or volumes, which breaks the citation-window model both JCR and Scimago use.
    • Preprints remain mutable — authors can revise a preprint indefinitely until journal publication, unlike a journal’s version of record.

    This is why “biorxiv scimago” searches also return nothing: bioRxiv is absent from Scimago’s journal rankings for the identical structural reason it is absent from JCR, not because of a data-processing gap. medRxiv, bioRxiv’s sister server for health sciences launched in 2019, is ineligible under the same rule set — hence “medrxiv impact factor” is equally unanswerable in the affirmative.

    bioRxiv’s ISSN, DOIs, and the Preprint Citation Index — What the Identifiers Actually Mean

    bioRxiv does hold an ISSN — 2692-8205 — issued because ISSNs are assigned to any continuing serial resource for cataloguing purposes, including repositories, and are unrelated to JIF eligibility. This is a distinction most explainers on this topic skip: an ISSN registers bioRxiv as a citable, ongoing publication series in library catalogues; it does not signal peer review, and it carries no weight in Clarivate’s or Scopus’s source-selection criteria.

    A second, frequently overlooked identifier detail: individual bioRxiv preprints are indexed in Clarivate’s Preprint Citation Index, a distinct Web of Science product launched to track preprint citations separately from the peer-reviewed Core Collection. Being present in the Preprint Citation Index is not the same as JCR eligibility — it is a citation-tracking layer, not a metric-generating one. bioRxiv preprints are also indexed by Crossref, Google Scholar, Semantic Scholar, and Europe PMC, and PubMed indexes preprints of NIH-funded research specifically.

    Attribute Peer-reviewed journal bioRxiv / medRxiv
    Peer review before posting Yes, editorial + referee decision No — screening only, for scope and safety
    JCR / Journal Impact Factor eligible Yes, if indexed in WoS Core Collection No — structurally excluded
    Scimago / SJR eligible Yes, if indexed in Scopus source list No — same structural exclusion
    ISSN Yes, per title Yes — bioRxiv: 2692-8205 (cataloguing only)
    DOI Yes, per article Yes, per preprint version
    Indexed in Web of Science Preprint Citation Index N/A Yes

    What Metrics Actually Apply to bioRxiv and medRxiv Preprints

    bioRxiv publishes per-preprint usage data on each article’s Metrics tab: abstract views and PDF downloads, updated daily, plus altmetric attention scores that aggregate mentions in news, blogs, and social platforms. These sit within the broader altmetrics framework that NISO formalised through its Alternative Assessment Metrics project (NISO RP-25-2020), which set recommended practices for defining and reporting non-citation research metrics.

    There is also downstream evidence linking preprint attention to eventual journal outcomes. A 2019 analysis of all bioRxiv preprints (Abdill & Blekhman, published in eLife and indexed at PMC6510536) found a measurable correlation between a preprint’s bioRxiv download count and the Journal Impact Factor of the journal in which it was later published — useful context, but a correlation about the destination journal, not a metric of the preprint itself.

    • Abstract and PDF views — updated daily on the preprint’s own page.
    • Altmetric attention score — tracks news, policy, and social-media mentions.
    • Citation counts via Crossref/Google Scholar/Semantic Scholar — real citations to the DOI, independent of any journal metric.
    • Eventual journal IF, once published — applies only after the manuscript is accepted by a peer-reviewed title, and belongs to that journal, not to the preprint record.

    Answer-First Q&A

    Does bioRxiv count as published?

    No. Posting on bioRxiv is not formal publication; it is a preliminary, non-peer-reviewed manuscript. Most journals do not treat a preprint as prior publication, so authors can still submit the same work to a peer-reviewed journal afterwards without disqualification.

    Is bioRxiv a credible source?

    bioRxiv preprints undergo screening for plagiarism, scope, and safety risks, but not scientific peer review, so credibility must be assessed manuscript-by-manuscript rather than assumed from the platform. Readers should treat findings as provisional until formal peer review or replication confirms them.

    Is it okay to cite bioRxiv preprints?

    Yes. bioRxiv preprints receive a DOI and are part of the citable scientific record, indexed by Crossref, Google Scholar, and Europe PMC. NIH explicitly encourages citing preprints as interim research products in grant applications.

    Is bioRxiv considered a journal?

    No. bioRxiv is a preprint repository operated by the non-profit openRxiv, distinct from a journal because it lacks an editorial acceptance decision, a fixed issue/volume structure, and formal peer review — the three conditions JCR and Scimago require for metric eligibility.

    Implications for Research Administrators

    For institutional research offices, funders, and evaluators, the practical takeaway is definitional discipline: preprint usage and altmetrics belong in a different evidence category from journal-level citation metrics, and conflating them in tenure, grant, or REF-adjacent narrative CVs misrepresents what each number measures. A downloads count on bioRxiv answers “how much attention has this manuscript attracted,” not “how citable is this journal” — the two questions require different data sources and different caveats when reported to a research-administration committee.

    As preprint servers proliferate across disciplines, the underlying eligibility logic will not change: JCR and Scimago metrics remain reserved for peer-reviewed, editorially governed serial publications. What is likely to evolve is the sophistication of preprint-specific metrics — the Web of Science Preprint Citation Index and NISO’s altmetrics recommended practices are both signs that the field is building dedicated infrastructure rather than forcing preprints into journal-shaped metrics they were never built to receive.

  • Does bioRxiv Count as a Publication? A Guide for Tenure and Promotion Committees

    Does bioRxiv count as a publication? No — not on its own. A bioRxiv preprint is a citable, DOI-registered scientific manuscript that has not been through peer review, and bioRxiv’s own FAQ states plainly that the server “is not a journal so it has no Impact Factor.” Tenure and promotion (P&T) committees should treat it as a genuine, citable research output — evidence of productivity, priority, and open-science practice — but list and weigh it separately from peer-reviewed publications.

    A preprint is a complete scientific manuscript that authors make publicly available before, or independently of, certification by journal peer review.

    What Is a bioRxiv Preprint?

    bioRxiv is a free online archive and distribution service for unpublished preprints in the life sciences, operated by the non-profit openRxiv. Manuscripts are screened for plagiarism and inappropriate content but are posted online within roughly 72 hours, without editorial peer review, copyediting, or typesetting.

    Every posted manuscript receives a Crossref-registered DOI, which is what makes it citable and part of the permanent scientific record. bioRxiv preprints are indexed by Google Scholar, Crossref, Europe PMC, Semantic Scholar, and the Preprint Citation Index connected to the Web of Science; preprints reporting NIH-funded research are also indexed in PubMed.

    Because it distributes preprints rather than certified, edited articles, bioRxiv does not carry an ISSN — the identifier reserved for ongoing serial (journal) publications. There is no equivalent of a “bioRxiv issue” or “bioRxiv volume”; each preprint stands alone under its own DOI, which is the correct locator to use in citations, CVs, and grant applications.

    Does bioRxiv Count as a Formal Publication?

    No. bioRxiv’s FAQ is direct on this point: preprints “have not been finalized by authors, might contain errors, and report information that has not yet been accepted or endorsed in any way by the scientific or medical community.” A preprint is a manuscript in circulation, not a certified publication.

    This has two immediate, practical consequences for committees:

    • No journal metrics apply. bioRxiv has no Impact Factor because it is not a journal — the metric does not exist for it, and any “bioRxiv impact factor” figure circulating online is not authoritative.
    • No peer-review certification exists unless a journal or independent review service has posted its reviews alongside the preprint via bioRxiv’s public review dashboard, which some — but not most — preprints carry.

    The distinction matters most in biomedical fields, where the International Committee of Medical Journal Editors (ICMJE) recommends that journals not treat prior posting on a recognised preprint server as prior publication that would bar later submission — preprints and journal articles are understood as different stages of the same research, not competing outputs.

    Criterion bioRxiv preprint Peer-reviewed journal article
    Peer review None (screening only) Completed by journal referees
    Persistent identifier DOI (Crossref) DOI (Crossref)
    ISSN Not applicable Carried by the journal
    Impact Factor None — not a journal May apply, per journal
    Citable and indexed Yes — Google Scholar, Crossref, Europe PMC Yes, plus journal-specific indexes
    Counts as REF output (UK) Not an eligible output type alone Yes, as version of record or AAM

    How Should Research Offices and P&T Committees Weigh Preprints?

    Institutional guidance is converging on a middle position: preprints are legitimate, citable evidence of research activity, but they are not substitutes for peer-reviewed publication in a promotion dossier. The San Francisco Declaration on Research Assessment (DORA) recommends that institutions “value the full range of research outputs” and stop leaning on journal-level metrics as a proxy for quality — a principle that supports counting preprints as evidence of output, provided their unreviewed status is disclosed, not concealed.

    Funder policy reinforces this. The US National Institutes of Health states that it “encourages investigators to use interim research products, such as preprints, to speed the dissemination and enhance the rigor of their work,” and explicitly permits citing preprints in grant applications and progress reports.

    In the UK, the position is narrower for one specific purpose: the Research Excellence Framework (REF) requires submitted outputs to be the version of record or the author’s accepted manuscript of a peer-reviewed work. A bioRxiv preprint is not, by itself, an eligible REF output type — it can evidence timeliness and priority in a narrative CV, but the REF-returnable output remains the eventual peer-reviewed article.

    These decisions typically sit with the research administration office coordinating the promotion dossier, working alongside the candidate and department. Research offices advising P&T committees should:

    1. Confirm whether the department’s or institution’s promotion policy names preprints explicitly, rather than assuming silence means exclusion.
    2. Ask candidates to separate preprints from peer-reviewed publications on the CV, never blend the two lists.
    3. Treat preprint citation counts and altmetrics as supplementary evidence of impact, not a replacement for peer-review certification.
    4. Check REF, funder, and journal eligibility rules before assuming a preprint alone satisfies an output requirement.

    How to Cite and List bioRxiv Preprints

    bioRxiv’s own citation guidance is the authoritative format: cite the preprint using its DOI, in the style Author AN, Author BT. Year. Title. bioRxiv doi: 10.1101/xxxxxx. If a specific version needs citing, add the version-specific URL alongside the DOI, since revisions post under the same DOI but remain individually accessible in the article’s version history.

    On a CV or narrative CV, best practice is to follow the same disclosure standards used for other authorship and contribution records:

    • Create a clearly labelled “Preprints” or “Working Papers” heading, separate from “Peer-Reviewed Publications.”
    • Include the DOI for every entry, since bioRxiv preprints are permanently archived (via Portico) and citable indefinitely, even if later withdrawn.
    • Note the eventual journal placement once available — bioRxiv automatically links a preprint to its published version within about two weeks of journal publication.
    • In funding applications, cite preprints exactly as NIH and comparable funders permit: as interim research products, with the DOI as the locator.

    bioRxiv preprints cannot be withdrawn from the record once posted; authors may only append a formal withdrawal statement, and the original manuscript stays accessible. This permanence is precisely why the DOI, not the manuscript title alone, is the correct and durable citation anchor for any P&T dossier.

    Preprint FAQs for Promotion Committees

    Is bioRxiv considered published?

    No. bioRxiv preprints are unpublished manuscripts distributed before or independent of journal peer review. They carry a DOI and are part of the citable scientific record, but bioRxiv itself states they have not been “accepted or endorsed” by the scientific community through peer review.

    Can you cite a bioRxiv paper?

    Yes. Every bioRxiv preprint receives a Crossref DOI, making it citable in manuscripts, CVs, and grant applications. The NIH explicitly permits citing preprints in funding applications as interim research products, and most journals now accept prior preprint posting.

    What qualifies as a publication?

    A formal publication is a manuscript that has completed editorial peer review and been accepted, edited, and released by a journal or publisher, typically carrying an ISSN (journal) and article DOI. A preprint, lacking peer review, does not meet this threshold on its own.

    Is bioRxiv a journal?

    No. bioRxiv is a preprint archive and distribution service operated by the non-profit openRxiv, not a journal. It has no editorial board issuing acceptance decisions and, per its own FAQ, “no Impact Factor” because that metric applies only to journals.

    For promotion committees, the practical takeaway is definitional discipline: a bioRxiv preprint is real, citable, DOI-anchored research evidence — but it is not a peer-reviewed publication, has no Impact Factor or ISSN, and should be evaluated on its own terms, alongside institutional, funder, and (in the UK) REF-specific rules, rather than folded silently into a publication list.