SocArXiv

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      vocab-term="SocArXiv"
      vocab-term-identifier="https://casrai.org/dictionary/term/socarxiv" />

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  "name": "SocArXiv",
  "identifier": "https://casrai.org/dictionary/term/socarxiv",
  "description": "<p><strong>SocArXiv</strong> is a free, open-access preprint repository for the social sciences. It was founded in 2016 by sociologist Philip N. Cohen in partnership with the nonprofit <a href='/guides/center-for-open-science'>Center for Open Science (COS)</a> and runs on the <a href='/dictionary/term/open-science-framework-osf'>Open Science Framework (OSF)</a> &mdash; the same underlying infrastructure that hosts <a href='/dictionary/term/osf-preprints'>OSF Preprints</a> and sibling branded servers such as <a href='/dictionary/term/psyarxiv'>PsyArXiv</a> (psychology) and engrXiv (engineering). SocArXiv launched alongside those two services on December 5, 2016, as part of COS's branded-server model, in which a scholarly community operates its own named, separately moderated preprint service on shared OSF backend infrastructure rather than building hosting from scratch.</p>\n\n<p>SocArXiv is not a COS-run editorial operation in the way a journal is. It is governed by a volunteer steering committee of scholars and library professionals under the banner \"SocOpen,\" and since 2021 its institutional home has been the University of Maryland Libraries, which provides the administrative and legal footing for the service as an ongoing academic unit rather than a standalone nonprofit.</p>\n\n<h2>Operational definition</h2>\n<p>A deposit is properly identified as a \"SocArXiv preprint\" if it meets all of the following:</p>\n<ul>\n<li>It was submitted through the SocArXiv service on OSF (osf.io/preprints/socarxiv), not simply cross-listed or mirrored from another repository such as <a href='/guides/arxiv-preprints-what-they-are-and-how-to-use-them'>arXiv</a> or SSRN.</li>\n<li>It falls within sociology or a closely related social-science field &mdash; SocArXiv accepts working papers, preprints, published-paper copies, data, and code across the social sciences broadly, not sociology alone.</li>\n<li>It has passed SocOpen's moderation screen, which is a scope-and-completeness check, not peer review: moderators confirm the item is scholarly, falls within a supported research area, is plausibly categorized, is correctly attributed to its stated authors, is in a moderated language, and is submitted in a text-searchable format (PDF or DOCX, not a scanned image).</li>\n<li>It has received an automatically assigned, persistent <a href='/dictionary/term/doi'>DOI</a> on upload, making it citable independent of eventual journal publication; a prior DOI issued by another publisher can also be linked to the same record.</li>\n<li>It carries one of SocArXiv's permitted reuse terms &mdash; CC BY 4.0, CC0 (public-domain dedication), or no license &mdash; selected by the author at deposit.</li>\n</ul>\n\n<h2>What SocArXiv is not</h2>\n<p>Posting to SocArXiv is explicitly not peer review, and a SocArXiv record is not, by itself, evidence that a manuscript has been formally accepted anywhere. Moderation checks scope and completeness, not scientific merit, methodology, or novelty. SocArXiv is also free to authors and readers &mdash; there is no submission fee or paywall, which distinguishes it from many venues that require an <a href='/dictionary/term/article-processing-charge'>article processing charge (APC)</a> at the journal stage.</p>\n\n<h2>Examples</h2>\n<ul>\n<li>A sociologist deposits a working paper analyzing survey data on labor-market outcomes to SocArXiv ahead of submitting it to a peer-reviewed journal, receiving a citable DOI immediately and using that DOI in grant reports and CVs while the manuscript is still under review elsewhere.</li>\n<li>A research team posts the accepted-but-not-yet-typeset version of a political-science article to SocArXiv under a publisher-permitted embargo, satisfying a funder's open-access mandate without waiting for the journal's own publication date.</li>\n</ul>\n\n<h2>Counter-example</h2>\n<p>A working paper in economics or sociology posted only to SSRN, a university's own institutional repository, or a personal website is <em>not</em> a \"SocArXiv preprint,\" even though it may cover an identical topic and serve a similar function &mdash; the term refers specifically to material submitted through and moderated by the SocArXiv service on OSF, not to social-science preprints in general (for that broader category, see <a href='/dictionary/term/preprint'>preprint</a>).</p>\n\n<h2>Related terms</h2>\n<ul>\n<li><a href='/dictionary/term/preprint'>Preprint</a></li>\n<li><a href='/dictionary/term/osf-preprints'>OSF Preprints</a></li>\n<li><a href='/dictionary/term/psyarxiv'>PsyArXiv</a></li>\n<li><a href='/dictionary/term/open-science-framework-osf'>Open Science Framework (OSF)</a></li>\n<li><a href='/dictionary/term/doi'>DOI</a></li>\n<li><a href='/guides/how-to-choose-a-preprint-server'>How to Choose a Preprint Server</a></li>\n<li><a href='/guides/preprint-servers-explained'>Preprint Servers Explained</a></li>\n</ul>\n",
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  "license": "https://creativecommons.org/licenses/by/4.0/",
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  "dateModified": "2026-07-24T07:04:23",
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