A preprint is a complete manuscript shared with a public audience without peer review. Often, preprints are also submitted for peer review and publication in a traditional scholarly journal. Preprints uploaded to a preprint server accelerate scholarly communication and public access.
The University of Arkansas maintains a non-OSF preprint service through our institutional repository, ScholarWorks@UARK
Preprints are not generally considered as publications. Most journals will accept articles that have been shared as preprints; however, some journals will not. Please check the journal’s policies on this matter prior to submitting an article that you have previously shared as a preprint. You can find information about most journal policies at SHERPA/RoMEO.
You should upload your preprint to whichever preprint server best fits your topic and the community that you would like to reach.
OSF hosts a number of communities that support the sharing of preprints. For example, the physics community developed ArXiv over 20 years ago. BiorXiv and PeerJ are preprint servers primarily for the life sciences community. PsyArXiv, SocArXiv, engrXiv, and numerous other emerging groups have partnered with OSF Preprints to support preprint sharing in psychology, the social sciences, and engineering, respectively. You can access these community preprint servers through the OSF Preprints landing page or by going to their individual preprint repositories. Cogprints supports papers in psychology, linguistics, computer science, neuroscience, biology and philosophy.
OSF Preprints is designed for any researchers in any field to share their work.
Open, non-restrictive licenses are available for you to apply to your preprint upon submission. Licencing is not mandatory; however, it is encouraged as it communicates to others how you want them to use and share your work. No license implies that you as the author hold full copyright - meaning no one can use or adapt your work without your permission.
choosealicense.com will help you decide which license to choose, depending on how you want others to use and share your work. You can further read the terms and conditions of licenses on Creative Commons. If submitting to a journal, you can look up the journal on SHERPA/RoMEO to see which license they recommend you use. If the journal isn’t listed, you can consult the journal editors to seek their advice.