The OASPA webinar “Scholarly Communication & COVID-19: Closing the Loop on Peer Review” presented alternatives to individual publisher controlled peer review and data storage systems. The #C19RapidReviewInitiative was a response by 9 publishers to fast track COVID-19 research publications, then it became a forum, joined by 3 additional publishers, to develop new systems for sharing peer reviews and data sources more broadly. One mechanism is the Rapid PREReview platform, Outbreak Science, which brings together reviewers, a shared code of conduct and a pre-review template linked to preprints and data from many sources. The goal was to design a transparent and equitable system of scholarly review through which an author would submit a paper once, and if rejected by one publisher, the reviews would continue to be available with submissions to subsequent publishers. The #C19RapidReviewInitiative group has coalesced around enforcing rather than encouraging provision of research data as a requirement. Fairsharing.org is working with researchers and organizations to ensure that data metadata is standardized and interoperable. While these organizations have come together to facilitate quality COVID-19 research distribution, their work has wider implications for collaborative open science.
