B2X – a new pipeline for author services

For several years, bioRxiv has made life easier for authors by enabling them to send their papers directly from bioRxiv to journals. This B2J (bioRxiv-to-journal) technology saves people time by automatically transferring their PDF, metadata and any source files to journal submission systems so they don’t have to upload these again at the journal website and re-enter all the information. Around 200 journals now participate in B2J, and portable peer review services such as Review Commons also participate.

We are now introducing a new delivery pipeline – B2X – that will enable authors to send their manuscripts to a variety of third-party services. These services are completely independent of bioRxiv and may include groups that assess particular aspects of manuscripts, help authors improve them, or check for compliance with specific funder requirements. The first organization to join B2X is DataSeer, a service that helps researchers navigate open data policies.

DataSeer scans articles for datasets collected and provides recommendations for how these should be shared. Authors receive a brief report on the data that should be shared and advice on metadata, file formats, and appropriate repositories. They can also obtain an Open Data certificate documenting data deposited in public repositories.

A growing number of initiatives are now automatically evaluating manuscripts and providing services for authors, and we hope these will join B2X over the coming months.

The new B2X delivery feature can be found in the lower portion of the author area, as shown below: