CASRAI Dictionary

Tag: preprint screening

  • bioRxiv Review Process: Screening Explained

    bioRxiv review is not peer review — it is a two-stage screening process. In-house staff and volunteer Principal Investigators check every submission for plagiarism, non-scientific content, inappropriate article types, and material that could endanger public health, typically within 24-48 hours. Roughly 5% of submissions do not meet bioRxiv’s posting criteria and are returned, escalated for discussion, or declined outright.

    bioRxiv is a preprint server for the life sciences, operated by the non-profit openRxiv, that posts complete but unpublished manuscripts online before formal journal peer review begins. Understanding what its screening actually checks for — and what happens when a submission does not clear it — helps authors avoid the delays that come from an incomplete or out-of-scope submission.

    What does bioRxiv’s review actually screen for?

    bioRxiv’s screening exists to keep the server usable and safe, not to certify scientific validity. Every submission is checked against a fixed set of criteria before it is allowed to post.

    According to bioRxiv’s own FAQ, all articles are screened on submission for four things: plagiarism, non-scientific content, inappropriate article types, and material that could endanger the health of individual patients or the public. That last category explicitly includes studies describing dual-use research of concern, and work that challenges or could compromise accepted public health advice on infectious disease transmission, immunisation, or therapy.

    • Automated text analysis for plagiarism and content already published elsewhere
    • Manual checks that the manuscript is a genuine research article, not a review, opinion piece, protocol-only submission, or product announcement
    • Screening for images or details that could identify a patient or study participant
    • Assessment of whether findings could alarm or mislead the public if posted without peer review

    Manuscripts already published in a journal cannot be submitted, and a preprint cannot sit on both bioRxiv and its sister server medRxiv simultaneously — doing so results in withdrawal of the article.

    How does the two-stage screening process work?

    bioRxiv runs a defined two-step pipeline rather than a single editorial check. Both stages must be passed before a manuscript posts.

    The first stage is in-house screening. According to bioRxiv’s screening-procedures notice, staff with scientific and editorial backgrounds verify that submission fields are complete, that group authors are not mis-listed as individuals, and that the manuscript is an appropriate article type — a research article is accepted; a narrative review, commentary, opinion piece, or standalone protocol is not. This stage also runs the automated plagiarism check.

    The second stage is Affiliate screening. Volunteer Principal Investigators, known as bioRxiv Affiliates, ask two questions: does the manuscript present biological research, and is there potential for public harm from posting it as a preprint? If an Affiliate has concerns on either point, the submission is flagged for further in-house discussion rather than posted automatically.

    bioRxiv states that this combined process “typically takes 24–48 hours, but can take longer over weekends and holidays, or if the submission requires in-house discussion and further correspondence with authors.” Its FAQ separately notes preprints “usually appear on bioRxiv within 72 hours” once screening and formatting are complete — the wider window accounts for queueing and the PDF-to-HTML conversion that follows posting.

    What happens when a preprint is held, escalated, or declined?

    Screening produces one of five outcomes, not a simple accept/reject binary. Manuscripts can be escalated at any stage for discussion by bioRxiv’s Content Team and, where needed, its Founders or external advisors — commonly because the article type or content falls outside scope, or because it contains conclusions that could cause public alarm, such as data disputing an established toxicity or carcinogenicity finding.

    Outcome What it means Typical trigger Author’s next step
    Posted Preprint goes live, usually within 24-72 hours Passes in-house and Affiliate checks No action needed; revisions remain possible later
    Returned for correction Sent back before posting Missing metadata, formatting errors, incomplete author or funder details Correct fields in the Author Area and resubmit
    Escalated for discussion Flagged for internal review Scope question, or risk of misleading/alarming the public Await correspondence; respond promptly to queries
    Transferred to medRxiv bioRxiv submission closed; author redirected by email Manuscript judged better suited to medRxiv’s clinical/health scope Resubmit via submit.medrxiv.org, which runs a separate screening team
    Declined Does not proceed to posting Fails scope or safety criteria, or judged “better disseminated after peer review” due to public-impact risk Address the specific concern and pursue journal peer review, or resubmit once the issue is resolved

    bioRxiv reports that approximately 5% of submissions are found not to meet its posting criteria. Content judged out of scope for public-health reasons is typically redirected to medRxiv rather than declined outright, since the two servers are co-managed but apply separate screening policies.

    What should authors do if their submission is held or declined?

    The correct response depends on which of the outcomes above applies. Treating every hold as a rejection — or every rejection as final — wastes time that a targeted fix would save.

    • If returned for correction: fix the flagged metadata field (author list, affiliations, funder ROR ID, special characters) directly in the Author Area; this is usually resolved within a day.
    • If escalated: respond promptly and specifically to any correspondence from bioRxiv’s Content Team — vague or delayed replies extend the discussion period.
    • If redirected to medRxiv: follow the email instructions to resubmit at submit.medrxiv.org; the bioRxiv submission is closed and cannot be revived.
    • If declined for scope or article type: check the FAQ’s excluded-content list before resubmitting — narrative reviews, case reports, hypothesis papers without new data, and standalone protocols are structurally out of scope, not fixable by rewording.
    • If declined for public-harm risk: bioRxiv’s stated position is that such findings are “better disseminated after peer review” — pursue a journal submission rather than repeated resubmission to the preprint server.

    Authors remain solely responsible for submitted content, including material produced with generative AI tools; AI systems are not permitted to be listed as authors. Institutional research-integrity offices should treat this authorial-responsibility principle consistently with their own authorship criteria and contributor-responsibility standards, since a preprint host’s screening does not substitute for an institution’s own compliance checks.

    Frequently asked questions

    Is bioRxiv reputable?

    Yes. bioRxiv is widely used across the life sciences and is indexed by Google Scholar, Crossref, Europe PubMed Central, and PubMed for NIH-funded work. It is not peer-reviewed, but its screening process and non-profit governance under openRxiv are well documented and independently verifiable.

    Why do people use bioRxiv?

    Authors use bioRxiv because formal peer review can take months, and preprints let other scientists see, discuss, and comment on findings immediately. It also lets researchers establish priority via a timestamped, citable DOI before journal publication concludes.

    Who owns bioRxiv?

    bioRxiv is operated by openRxiv, a non-profit founded by Cold Spring Harbor Laboratory. It is funded by a consortium including the Chan Zuckerberg Initiative, the Sergey Brin Family Foundation, Caltech, Imperial College London, MIT, and Stanford — no single commercial owner controls the server.

    Is bioRxiv peer-reviewed?

    No. bioRxiv preprints are not certified by peer review, edited, or typeset before posting. Some manuscripts undergo peer review elsewhere concurrently, and those reviews may appear alongside the preprint on bioRxiv’s dashboard, but posting itself only requires passing screening.

    What this means for institutions and authors

    bioRxiv’s screening model draws a clear line that research-administration offices should reinforce internally: screening filters for scope, safety, and originality, while peer review evaluates scientific validity. The ICMJE’s Recommendations similarly caution that preprints have not been peer reviewed and should be identified as such wherever they are cited or discussed publicly. COPE’s guidance on preprints makes the same distinction, placing responsibility for research-integrity safeguards at this stage jointly on the server’s screening and the submitting institution.

    For authors, the practical takeaway is straightforward: a held or declined submission is almost always a scope, formatting, or safety issue with a defined remedy, not a verdict on the science. Reading bioRxiv’s excluded-content list and funder/author metadata requirements before submission remains the single most effective way to clear bioRxiv review on the first pass.

  • Is bioRxiv Peer-Reviewed? What Screening Checks

    bioRxiv preprints are not peer-reviewed. Every submission passes a basic screening process — checked for plagiarism, offensive or non-scientific content, and research-integrity or biosecurity concerns — before posting, usually within 24-48 hours. That screening confirms a manuscript is a genuine, appropriately scoped scientific report; it does not evaluate whether the methods are sound, the data support the conclusions, or the findings are correct. Formal peer review only happens later, if and when the manuscript is submitted to a journal or an independent review service.

    bioRxiv is a free preprint server for the life sciences, operated by the non-profit openRxiv and founded by Cold Spring Harbor Laboratory in 2013, that lets researchers post manuscripts publicly before or during journal submission.

    What bioRxiv’s screening process actually checks

    bioRxiv runs a documented two-step screen on every submission. The first pass is done by in-house staff with scientific and editorial backgrounds, who confirm the manuscript is complete, correctly formatted, and within the server’s life-sciences scope. This stage automatically checks for plagiarism and rules out content that is not a research article — news items, advertisements, policy statements, narrative reviews, and protocols without new data are all excluded.

    The second pass is carried out by bioRxiv Affiliates, a network of volunteer principal investigators, who confirm the work is genuine biological research and flag anything that could pose a public-health or biosecurity risk, including what the US National Institutes of Health defines as dual-use research of concern. Overtly identifying patient information is also removed at this stage.

    • Plagiarism detection against published and preprint literature
    • Confirmation the submission is a scientific research article, not opinion, protocol, or promotional content
    • Dual-use and public-health risk screening by volunteer affiliates
    • Removal of overt patient- or participant-identifying material
    • Scope check — routing clinical-research submissions to medRxiv where appropriate

    bioRxiv’s own documentation states that roughly 5% of submissions do not clear this screen and are not posted. Screening typically completes within 24-48 hours — a fraction of the weeks or months a journal’s peer review takes, which is the entire point of a preprint server.

    Screening vs peer review: what’s the difference

    Screening is a gatekeeping check on form and conduct. Peer review is an expert evaluation of scientific substance — whether the experimental design supports the stated conclusions, whether statistics are applied correctly, and whether the work advances the field. bioRxiv is explicit that no endorsement of an article’s methods, assumptions, conclusions, or scientific quality is implied by its appearance on the server.

    Dimension bioRxiv screening Formal peer review
    Who performs it In-house staff + volunteer affiliates Independent subject-matter expert reviewers
    What it checks Plagiarism, scope, ethics, biosecurity, format Methodology, data integrity, validity of conclusions
    Typical duration 24-48 hours Weeks to several months
    Outcome Posted or rejected (~5% rejected) Accept, revise, or reject a specific journal submission
    Result on the record A citable preprint with a DOI A certified, published journal article

    Some preprints do receive structured external review while still hosted as preprints — eLife launched its Preprint Review service on bioRxiv in May 2020, and services such as Review Commons operate similarly. These are useful signals, but they are separate, named services layered on top of bioRxiv, not a function of bioRxiv’s own screening.

    Independent research (Abdill & Blekhman, cited widely including on Wikipedia) has found that roughly two-thirds of bioRxiv preprints are eventually published in a peer-reviewed journal, and bioRxiv automatically links to the published version once a match is found. That figure is a useful proxy for eventual quality, but it says nothing about the third that are never formally reviewed, and it cannot be applied to any single preprint you are reading today.

    Is medRxiv peer-reviewed too?

    No. medRxiv, bioRxiv’s sister server for clinical and health-related research, follows the same principle: manuscripts are screened, not peer-reviewed. Because medRxiv covers clinical and public-health topics, its screening is deliberately stricter — submissions undergo additional review for content that could directly influence patient behaviour or clinical practice, and certain categories (such as case reports without a clear scientific contribution) are restricted or excluded outright.

    The same “originator, not owner” caution applies here as everywhere in preprint literature: a medRxiv posting is not evidence of clinical validation and should not be treated as equivalent to a peer-reviewed clinical trial report or a regulatory submission.

    What happens to a preprint after it’s screened and posted

    Once posted, a bioRxiv preprint is permanent and citable. It receives a DOI immediately, cannot be withdrawn once published, and authors can post revised versions that retain the same DOI. Authors typically submit the same manuscript to a journal in parallel or afterwards, where it then enters that journal’s own peer-review process.

    bioRxiv operates a “bioRxiv-to-journal” (B2J) transfer service with more than 300 partner journals — including Cell Reports, PLOS Biology, Genetics in Medicine, and Molecular Biology of the Cell — allowing authors to send a screened preprint directly into a journal’s submission and peer-review pipeline without re-uploading files. This accelerates the path from preprint to certified publication but does not shortcut peer review itself.

    • Readers can post public comments, moderated to professional standards
    • bioRxiv reserves the right to remove plagiarised material or work found to breach research-integrity standards after posting
    • A link to the eventual published version is added automatically, usually within a few weeks of journal publication

    Common questions about bioRxiv and peer review

    Is bioRxiv credible?

    bioRxiv is a credible, widely used distribution channel run by a respected non-profit, but credibility of the platform is separate from validity of any individual manuscript. Screening filters out plagiarism and ethical breaches; it does not certify scientific quality, so each preprint must be read critically on its own merits.

    Is it okay to cite bioRxiv?

    Yes — bioRxiv preprints receive a DOI and are formally citable as part of the scientific record. Most style guides and journals require the citation to note explicitly that the source is an unrefereed preprint, so readers understand it has not passed formal peer review.

    Is a preprint a reliable source?

    A preprint can be a reliable indicator of ongoing research but is not a validated source in the way a peer-reviewed article is. Reliability depends on the specific manuscript — its methods, transparency, and any subsequent independent review — not on the preprint server’s basic screening alone.

    Is bioRxiv considered published?

    bioRxiv preprints are publicly posted and citable, but they are not “published” in the traditional peer-reviewed sense used by journals, funders, and most academic assessment exercises. Many institutions and funders explicitly distinguish preprints from peer-reviewed publications in reporting requirements.

    Implications for authors, readers, and institutions

    For authors, bioRxiv’s fast, lightly gated screening is the trade-off that makes rapid dissemination possible — but it also means responsibility for accuracy sits with the authors, not the platform, until formal peer review occurs. For readers and journalists, the practical rule is definitive: treat unreviewed bioRxiv claims as provisional, check whether a published, peer-reviewed version exists via the automatic journal link, and note preprint status explicitly whenever citing or reporting on one. For institutions building research-integrity or preprint-citation policies, bioRxiv’s own screening criteria — plagiarism, scope, dual-use risk, and patient confidentiality — are a useful documented baseline to reference, precisely because they are narrow and clearly bounded rather than a substitute for peer review.

    As preprint volume continues to grow across the life sciences, the distinction between “screened” and “peer-reviewed” is likely to matter more, not less — particularly as overlay review services like eLife’s Preprint Review and Review Commons expand the space between the two.