Codes and Datasets for paper “After Desperate Times, Still a Desperate Measure?: Pandemic and Post-Pandemic Engagement with Preprints in the Biology and Health Science Fields" Master's Paper

These codes and datasets are part of the master’s paper “After Desperate Times, Still a Desperate Measure?: Pandemic and Post-Pandemic Engagement with Preprints in the Biology and Health Science Fields.” These code and datasets inform visualization and analyses about the number of preprint manuscripts on two preprint servers, bioRxiv and medRxiv. The code and datasets also inform visualizations and analyses about attention to and trust of the preprints on these servers. Although the datasets contain some data from November 2013 – June 2018, the focus of the codes is the data from July 2018 – December 2022.

The folder contains datasets:
• Identifying metadata for the preprints posted November 2013 – December 2022 (folder data/contributions).
• Identifying the number of times per month each preprint’s abstract was viewed and the number of times per month each full-text PDF for each preprint was downloaded, for each month that each preprint was available online (folder data/usage).

The folder contains codes for:
• Downloading metadata for preprints (preprint_details.Rmd)
• Downloading usage statistics for preprints (preprint_usage_first_adaptation.Rmd, preprint_usage_second_adaptation_use.Rmd)
• Cleaning usage statistics for preprints (identifying_missing_preprints_from_download_w_altmetricsdimensions.Rmd, preprint_usage_second_adaptation_use.Rmd)
• Downloading citations to preprints using the Dimensions Analytics API (preprint_citations.ipynyb)
• Creating figures to visualize the data (figures.Rmd)
• Statistical tests to analyze the data (statistical_analyses.Rmd)

The folder also contains notes about downloading data about citations to and altmetric citations to the preprints, although this data could not be shared publicly.