Pre-Prints: A new academic discourse process

The traditional long-form of academic discourse, that can be dominated by an insular group, is undergoing a significant transformation. One capable of improving transparency and community engagement and bridging the division of research and practice in outdoor therapies.

Blind peer-review in which two researchers knowledgable on a certain topic volunteer to review and analyse submitted research papers in good faith without knowing authors was  once a cornerstone. This is challenging in the field of outdoor therapies.

If someone submitted a research paper about the Adventure Therapy Outcome Monitoring study, we can make an educated guess on who wrote it. If I'm writing about dissociation or complex trauma and adventure therapy, many in the community will know they are most likely reviewing my work. We're a small and engaged community so the notion of a 'blinded' peer-review becomes increasingly challenging.

To preserve this process, we require discipline to politely decline reviewing papers when you know you cannot provide an objective review. 

Today, this process is faltering, signalling the need for a shift towards a more inclusive and democratic approach to ongoing research.

Dr. Scott D. Miller, the co-founder of the International Center for Clinical Excellence and previous consultant and trainer for the Adventure Therapy Outcome Monitoring study, described three types of reviewer; those who enrich the discourse with fresh insights, those who seek to align narratives with their own, and those who dilute original perspectives by including tangential information.

The proceedings from the 9th International Adventure Therapy conference were un-blinded and collaborative. Many of us volunteered in support for the project. We helped each other more as supervisors and colleagues than as judge and jury. Talking with colleagues, I found we all experience helpful, collaborative, and supportive reviews, ultimately leading to better outputs for our field.

Where reviewer power was lost, author capability was increased.

Now something else is here that signifies a departure from blind review and the suppression of diverse viewpoints by entrenched groups. My guess is pre-print servers (such as https://socopen.org/) will become the new normal for academic discourse.

Before undergoing formal peer-review in an academic journal, articles can be uploaded to pre-print servers, swiftly verified for authenticity, and made accessible to the public. The authors are identified and the pre-print is known to be a draft. Both large academic publishers Springer and Taylor & Francis endorse this process.

After uploading to the pre-print server, articles are moderated to eliminate AI generated and incomplete articles and allocated a DOI in 1-3 days. A DOI is a Digital Object Identifier, a set of numbers or symbols used to identify an article or document. This will also provide a URL to help with locating specific articles.

Preprint Sharing | Springer

What are preprints and preprint servers?

This newfound accessibility empowers the professional community to engage in robust discussions, offer feedback, and iterate on ideas, while ensuring proper attribution to the original authors.

As manuscripts undergo successive revisions, discourse evolves dynamically, akin to the iterative nature of conference proceedings.

The distribution of the original, and developing perspective is controlled by the public and not by the delaying reviewers of type 2 and 3 described by Scott.

Journals must adapt their processes to accommodate this shift, recognising that past methods of quality control have often stifled dissent and innovation. The precise trajectory of academia's evolution remains uncertain.

I think the new professional and academic discourse will be fast and fascinating and will be less stressful as we find ways to respond in ways helpful to the public. We must rapidly adapt to the new discourse.
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This blog was provided by Graham Pringle

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