Two repositories offer open access options for researchers

SocArXiv, a new subject repository, is giving social science researchers a place to publish pre-print versions of their articles.

Run by researchers, this non-profit, open access, repository is one option that enables authors to make their publications available to everyone.

By posting pre-prints* in SocArXiv, authors can benefit from feedback before final publication. They can also benefit from wider and more timely readership of their research and the potential for future collaborations. By hosting a pre-print of journal publications, SocArXiv allows readers to access social science scholarship without paywalls.

Another open access option available to researchers is MacSphere, McMaster’s institutional repository. MacSphere includes pre-prints, post-prints and final versions of journal articles as allowed by the publishers. With the exception of McMaster theses, which students may embargo for up to one year, the content in MacSphere is fully open for everyone to access and read. The repository infrastructure allows the metadata in MacSphere to be fully searchable using search engines such as Google Scholar.

Uploading a post-print or a final version of an article to MacSphere may allow authors who have been granted public, federal funding from the Canadian Institutes of Health Research (CIHR), the Natural Sciences and Engineering Research Council of Canada (NSERC) or the Social Sciences and Humanities Research Council of Canada (SSHRC), on or after May 1, 2015, to comply with the Tri-Agency Open Access Policy on Publications.

To make a submission in SocArXiv, click here

To make a submission in MacSphere, click here

SocArXiv and MacSphere are two of many online repositories which are available for author self-archiving of journal articles and other published works. Make your research known and post your article in an open repository today!

If you have any questions about SocArXiv, please contact Tina Fetner, Sociology Department, tina.fetner@mcmaster.ca

If you have any questions about MacSphere, please send an email to the Office of Scholarly Communication, scom@mcmaster.ca

*Most publishers allow article pre-prints to be made open access. To be sure, an author can search the SHERPA/RoMEO database to determine a publisher’s open access policies for self-archiving.