Structured PREreview of Gaps between Open Science activities and actual recognition systems: Insights from an international survey

Does the introduction explain the objective of the research presented in the preprint?

Yes

The abstract and introduction were written clearly and concisely. In particular, the abstract provided a plain-language summary of the main findings from the survey.

Are the methods well-suited for this research?

Somewhat appropriate

While the authors report that there were 230 responses to the survey, it is unclear what the underlying population was making it difficult to assess a response rate. This is known challenge of using snowball sampling (trading off a greater number of responses with an uncertain baseline). The authors should disclose the completion rates for survey completion as well - it's likely that, with only 19 questions, that drop-out rates were very low and completion was high.

Are the conclusions supported by the data?

Highly supported

As the results rely solely on descriptive analysis and the authors clearly describe the sample frame limitations on generalizability, these results make complete sense even to a reader with low familiarity with the topic.

Are the data presentations, including visualizations, well-suited to represent the data?

Somewhat appropriate and clear

While I am a fan of pie charts for simple descriptions - they are very difficult for human readers to make comparative contrasts using their interocular percussion (i.e., by looking at it). Figure 1, adds a bit of complication to this as a helioplot/radiograph where not all information is properly labeled. Additional presentation of this information in a table would be useful.

How clearly do the authors discuss, explain, and interpret their findings and potential next steps for the research?

Somewhat clearly

The summary and interpretation of results is spot on from the data presented. However, the authors could do more to explain both the "so what" of the results and the "what's next" based on both their findings and any natural outgrowths of those findings. From a research perspective, what gaps remain that need to be filled? Should there be a more comprehensive study with a more generalizable sample? From a policy perspective, how should the open science advocates and policymakers proceed with translating these findings into practice, policy, or otherwise shape their perspective? From a researcher perspective, how should researchers seek credit for practicing open and FAIR data management?

Is the preprint likely to advance academic knowledge?

Somewhat likely

Would it benefit from language editing?

Yes

There are citation formatting issues - many of the in-line citations are linked to Zotero rather than being linked to the in-document list of references, making look-up cumbersome for the reader. Rather than linking to Zotero, which readers may not have access to, the citations should either link to the DOIs of the underlying references or to the bibliography in the paper. Other in-line citations that are referenced more than once lack accessible hyperlinks altogether (i.e., see citation 11 Hahn et al. on page 13 goes no where as an example). This is an accessibility issue that should be addressed in the next revision.

Would you recommend this preprint to others?

Yes, it’s of high quality

Is it ready for attention from an editor, publisher or broader audience?

Yes, after minor changes

Competing interests

The author declares that they have no competing interests.