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Endorsements

A Community Endorsement endorsement signals that a preprint or other research objects meets standards that each community has defined - normally a combination of meeting the community’s topical scope, a certain bar for quality of evidence, significance, or other community-specific criteria.

When enough community feedback to make a decision has been generated, a Community Curator evaluates the reviews and ratings and decides whether the community:

  • Endorses the preprint
  • Recommends changes are needed
  • Declines to endorse

What happens next?

This is up to the author to decide.

If the community recommended changes, authors can choose to follow their recommendation and ask the community to consider the newly revised version.

If a community doesn’t provide feedback, or declines to endorse, authors can seek feedback or endorsement from another community.

With a community endorsement - or at any point in the process - authors may choose to pursue formal publication. Or they can decide that the preprint and feedback on The Ark is the final stage.

Whatever an author chooses, all the feedback they’ve received - reviewer reports, ratings, endorsement decisions and timeline - remain associated with the preprint, reducing duplication of effort and promoting transparency.