SocArXiv updates

Lots of exciting new developments and innovation in the works at SocArXiv. Here is a quick rundown. 

Everything described here is under development. The new services are public so people can start testing them out, offering feedback, and think about building tools to work with them. Everything in our partnership with the Center for Open Science (COS) is open source, open access, and non-profit.

• COS has opened their general preprint server, now aptly described as “The open preprint repository network.” This is the system that hosts SocArXiv, and it will allow integration of papers from many different services, such as the giant arXiv (which is mostly math and physics), the new bioRxiv, and the new communities hosted by COS, which so far include SocArXiv, engRxiv, and PsyArXiv. At this site you can search all the preprint servers at once, or any combination of them. However, at present you can still only add papers to SocArXiv using our email deposit system (click Add your Preprints for instructions). This is temporary; soon you will be able to upload papers at the main site and identify which archive(s) you want to submit them to. All papers added to SocArXiv now will be in the database.
• The COS preprint server is integrated with SHARE, the free, open dataset of the entire research life cycle (described here). SHARE currently includes 120+ sources, including all the preprint servers, a lot of institutional repositories, and the big public databases like PubMed and BioMed and DataCite. The beauty of this for SocArXiv users is it will allow us to generate, for example, lists or notifications for a school or department’s scholarly output, a keyword, or a conference or working paper series. SHARE is in process of upgrading to version 2 now, but people with interests in programming this sort of thing can visit the API documentation page (please be aware indexing is not yet complete).
• COS has a new partnership with Overleaf, a company that offers a free LaTeX authoring platform, to support the automatic submission of manuscripts to the new preprint servers. LaTeX users should also check out the SocArXiv template authored by Christopher Marcum.
• Our media highlights page includes a Bloomberg View post urging sociologists to give away working papers like our richer, more influential cousins the economists do; a column by Barbara Fister on the rapid advance of open access, and other news. You probably also want to read this thorough paper on the benefits of open scholarship for researchers’ careers.
• SocArXiv director Philip Cohen has been accepted to represent the project at the OpenCon conference in Washington, D.C. this fall.

Remember, post papers here, follow us on Twitter and Facebook, email us to get involved or volunteer, and make a tax-deductible contribution through the University of Maryland here, watch the pronunciation video here.