Best way to handle a preprint?

[foralurker]

I have a preprint prepared that consists of a grant proposal and the report I sent back to the organization who funded the grant with initial results.

What I have explains the study, shows 25 people attended a workshop on a practice, and the results of five people who ended up using what they learned in their classrooms and reported their satisfaction with the workshop's ability to prepare them to use it.

Here's the problem:

I don't think I have enough participants to get anything published. I'm so sad!

I presented this at a regional conference and I have two "consulting" offers to run my program at other universities nearby. And they want to publish on the results from their campus.

Since I'm unlikely to get to publish my original contribution, and I'm going to end up playing second fiddle to whoever gathers their data first, I think I should do a preprint of my work so these other campuses can still cite me as the originator.

My question:

Should I upload my preprint to my university library's open source repository (Google scholar will crawl them)

Or should I upload my preprint to Research Gate? And how do I fill out the metadata on RG?

Thanks!

[poiuy]

Hi foralurker:
Some suggestions for you to try:

Expand your document to include more detail, and make it a Technical Report.  There is interest in such work, even if not publishable in conventional peer reviewed research journals.  I have done this a couple of times, reporting on community presentations and programs.

Yes to archiving the preprint on your library's open source repository.

Yes to also posting on Researchgate.  I think they have an item for preprint and one for Technical Report. 

[foralurker]

Oh that's an interesting idea. I'll read a few technical reports and get a feel for the genre. Thanks!

[Puget]

Does your field have an established preprint server (like bioRxiv or PsyRxiv)? The benefit of those is they are much more searchable and have DOIs. OSF will also let you generate a DOI. It is more intended for preregistrations, but you may be able to use it for preprints as well. 

[foralurker]

No, I'm afraid this wouldn't fit in on a preprint server because it's multidisciplinary (or maybe I'm looking at this the wrong way) and is more focused on teaching. Might be a stretch to put it on one.