SocArXiv is the open-access preprint server for the social sciences. It was founded in 2016 by University of Maryland sociologist Philip N. Cohen in partnership with the nonprofit Center for Open Science (COS), created in part as a response to Elsevier's acquisition of SSRN that same year. The service runs on the Open Science Framework (OSF) - the same infrastructure behind OSF Preprints and sibling servers such as PsyArXiv - and since 2022 its institutional home has been the University of Maryland Libraries. Governance is by a volunteer steering committee of scholars and academic librarians, with Cohen as founding director; in 2025 SocArXiv won the Kohli Foundation for Sociology's Infrastructure Prize.

The repository hosts roughly 17,000 papers - working papers, conference papers, preprints, and postprints - across sociology and the social sciences broadly, plus education and law, in many languages. It accepted 3,162 new papers in 2025, about 20% more than in 2024. Everything is free to post and free to read.

Submission goes through the OSF Preprints workflow:

1. Create a free OSF account (or sign in with your institutional credentials or ORCID).
2. Upload your paper as a text-searchable file - PDF or docx.
3. Add metadata: title, abstract, coauthors, discipline tags, and any related data or code, which OSF lets you link alongside the paper.
4. Choose a license - CC BY 4.0, CC0, or no license. You keep copyright either way.
5. Submit for moderation. Volunteer moderators check the paper against SocArXiv's public checklist, and accepted papers appear with a Crossref DOI.

You can post new versions at any time; the DOI stays stable and earlier versions remain accessible. If the paper is later published in a journal, you can add the published version's DOI to the preprint record so readers find the version of record.

SocArXiv is moderated, not peer reviewed. Volunteer moderators apply a published checklist confirming that a paper is (1) scholarly - minimally informative and complete, (2) in a research area SocArXiv supports, (3) plausibly categorized, (4) not fraudulent, (5) correctly attributed, (6) in a language the team moderates, and (7) in a text-searchable format. Moderation checks scholarliness and legitimacy, not methods, findings, or significance - acceptance is not an endorsement of the research. Decisions typically arrive within a few days.

Every SocArXiv preprint has a Crossref DOI, and the OSF page auto-generates citations in APA, MLA, and Chicago, with other styles available on the preprint page. Social scientists typically cite preprints in ASA or APA style, marking the item as a preprint and including the DOI, for example: Author, A. (2026). "Title of paper." SocArXiv. https://doi.org/10.31235/osf.io/xxxxx. Because preprints are versioned, cite the version you read.

Posting to SocArXiv does not count as prior publication at most social science journals, which follow standard preprint-friendly policies - but a minority of journals still object, so check the target journal's preprint policy before posting. Common workflows:

• Post first, submit later: share the working paper for feedback and priority, then submit to a journal.
• Post at submission: many authors post the same version they send to the journal.
• Post the accepted manuscript (postprint): where the journal's self-archiving policy allows, SocArXiv is a natural Green OA home for accepted manuscripts.

SocArXiv itself never charges for any of this, and it satisfies open-access sharing expectations from many funders.

There is no charge to authors or readers - no submission fee, no APC, no subscription. SocArXiv is supported by the University of Maryland Libraries, grant funding, and the Center for Open Science's OSF infrastructure. That makes it one of the cheapest legitimate routes to open access in the social sciences: $0.

SocArXiv expects correct attribution and honest work; fraudulent or plagiarized papers are rejected or removed. Papers are meant to be permanent scholarly records - full removal is rare and discouraged, though a paper can be withdrawn with a tombstone notice that preserves the DOI. Authors remain responsible for the content; readers should treat preprints as not-yet-peer-reviewed and check whether a published version exists.