Welcome to OSF Preprints

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The following is a Table of Contents that links directly to specific sections within the guide.

• Overview
• Creating a preprint
• How to Prepare Your Preprint
• Upload your preprint
• Managing your preprints
• Edit your preprint
• Resubmit your preprint
• Create a New Version
• Submitting to a Moderated Service
• Withdrawing a preprint
• Cite a preprint
• Preprint analytics
• FAQs

Overview

OSF Preprints is a network of community-run preprint servers that provide a platform for scholars to upload working papers, preprints, and published papers, with the option to link data and code. Preprints are generally shared through specialized preprint servers like PsyArXiv,  SocArXiv, MetaArxiv, and Law Archive, offering a way to share your research quickly, receive feedback from the community, and gain a wider audience for your work. All of the community-run preprint servers on the OSF follow the same upload process and follow pre-moderation policies, where submissions are in a private, pending state until a moderator accepts or rejects them. If accepted, preprints receive a DOI and a persistent URL to allow your preprint to be cited, and the option to add supplemental files, like data or analysis scripts. test

Creating a Preprint

How to Prepare Your Preprint

1. Get permission from all authors to share the preprint

   • Before posting a preprint, verify that you have permission from the original author and all co-author(s) to share the work. By sharing a preprint, you confirm that all authors agree with sharing it and that you have the right to share the preprint.
   • Confirm any conflicts of interest from all co-authors so you can disclose the COI for the preprint. Examples of potential conflicts of interest include: financial involvement within any related entities, such as honoraria, grants, speaking fees, employment, consultancies, stock ownership, expert testimony, and patents or licenses.
2. Determine the authorship order
   • Communicate with your co-authors that you want to share your article as a preprint and determine the order in which the names should appear
3. Decide how you want to license your preprint
   • It's important to choose the appropriate license to apply to your preprint in order to communicate how you want others to share your work. That said, it's not required to license your preprint.
   • In general, licenses recommended are CC-0 1.0 Universal and CC-By Attribution 4.0 International. These are open licenses. Additional licenses are available on some of the community-run preprint services.
   • Learn more about the different licenses at Creative Commons or Choosealicense.Com
4. Prepare your preprint file
   • You should have your preprint in an easily accessible file. It is advisable to use non-proprietary file types like PDF. These document formats are easier to share and reuse, and will render with fewer complications than proprietary filetypes like Microsoft Office filetypes.
   • Preprints are part of the scholarly record. You should assume that your preprint will always be publicly available. Check that you’ve removed any information from your preprint that shouldn't be shared publicly
5. Write the abstract
   • Plan your abstract ahead of time, and make sure that it’s at least 20 characters long. 
   • You can either type your abstract or copy and paste it into the textbox during the upload process. You can’t upload an abstract as a file
6. Prepare supplemental materials
   • Author assertions about the availability of public data increase transparency for readers and make it easier for readers to find the data underlying your preprint. Gather DOIs or persistent links to any of the data used in the analyses in your preprint to provide along with the preprint.
   • If you have supplemental materials that you want to share along with your preprint -- code, protocols, surveys, data, etc.-- these files will be stored in an OSF project that will be connected to your preprint. You can add supplemental materials at any time, and they can always be removed. If you do not have an OSF project specifically designed for supplemental data you will be able to create one during the preprint submission process and if you already have one you will be able to link it
7. Choose disciplines
   • Decide which discipline(s) best fit your preprint. It's required to add one top-level discipline, and you can get more specific by adding subdisciplines.
   • The disciplines and subdisciplines available will vary by preprint server. To see the disciplines offered by the community-run preprint servers, you can browse the subject areas on each preprint server's "Search" page. See our Search And Discover Preprints help guide for instructions.
   • If you don't see your discipline, you can tag your preprint with your specific subject area(s).
8. Choose a preprint service
   • PsyArXiv, SocArXiv, LawArXiv, Thesis Commons, and several others have partnered with OSF Preprints infrastructure to support preprint sharing across different disciplines. You should upload your preprint to whichever preprint service best fits your topic and the community that you would like to reach. If there isn’t a community-run preprint service for your discipline on the OSF, check out these external options: https://spi-hub.app.vumc.org/pp-service/browse or https://asapbio.org/focus-areas/preprints/preprint-resource-center/. 

These are the preprint services currently hosted on the OSF. They represent research communities and disciplinary areas.

Upload a Preprint

Select a preprint service

The OSF is home to community-run preprint services that allow you to share your preprint (pre-publication) with a community of researchers. 

You can select a preprint service either from the preprint discover page by clicking the “Add a Preprint” tab found at the top of the preprint discover page: 

OR from your “My Preprints” page:

This will take you to an all-encompassing list of our preprint services. For a description, hover your cursor over the preprint service you wish to submit to.  Once you have chosen which service you wish to submit to, click the “select” box.  

You will be able to click the “Next” button.

This will take you to the submission workflow.

Fields on a Preprint submission:

• Title and Abstract

Enter Title and Abstract

2. File : Upload the File from Your Computer

1. Select “Upload From Your computer”
2. Select “Upload file”
3. Navigate to the file you want to upload
4. Once you have selected the file you want to upload, select “Next”.
5. You should see the file in the file section, verify that the correct file is there, then select “Next”.

3. Upload the File by selecting from an existing OSF Project

   1. Select the Project containing the preprint file you want to upload.

      

   2. Select the file that you want to upload

      

   3. You should see the file in the file section, then select “Next”

      

Metadata

Metadata is identifying data about your work and is used to help other researchers find, cite and identify appropriate studies.  This includes: Contributors, Licenses, Institutional Affiliations, Subjects, Tags, and any associated DOIs for published articles.

Contributors

You can add other co-authors at this time, whether or not they already have an OSF account. 

When adding contributors, they will need to be assigned specific permissions. All co-authors are given read+write permissions by default. All permission levels can be bibliographic contributors, a non-bibliographic contributor will not have their name associated with the preprint, but will maintain the granted permissions. The different levels of permissions are:

• Read: The contributor can view the preprint but does not have permission to edit.
• Read + Write: The contributor can view the preprint but does not have permission to edit. The author can add supplemental files.     
• Administrator: The contributor can view and edit the preprint, add supplemental files, and manage authors and permissions.

If a co-author already has an account, they can be added as a registered user. Select “Add Contributor by Search”

1. Then search for the contributor by name.
2. Select the contributor.
3. Select the appropriate permissions.
4. Select "Next".

To add an unregistered contributor:

1. Select “Add Unregistered Contributor”
2. Enter the a) contributor name and b) email address.
3. Select “Add”

You can remove contributors using the RED trash can, edit permissions by selecting the clicking the {V} arrow button, and change bibliographic status.

Reorder Authors

The order in which your authors appear in the "Authors" list is the order in which they will appear in citations. To reorder authors, click the icon with three bars, then drag and drop the authors into the correct order.

License

A license tells others how they can use your work in the future and only applies to the information and files submitted with the registration. For more information, see this help guide.

Select a license by clicking the dropdown menu and selecting an option.

Affiliated Institutions

OSF institutions are a pay-for-service tool for universities and research institutes to house, aggregate, and develop a community among their researchers.  As a researcher, if you are a part of one of these institutions, you can connect your preprint with your institution's branding by clicking the box. 

All of the institutions that are connected to your account (normally through an email domain) will display. If you need more information about connecting your institution to your account, please see the institution section

Subjects

Subjects allow users to categorize their work for easier search and identification by other researchers. You can use the Search field to find more subject areas.

Tags (Optional)

Tags are an excellent way of highlighting keywords to help your work appear in a researcher's search criteria. Start with the generic terms associated with your project (ex. Virology) and work towards more specific terminology (Covid-19).

Publication DOI (Optional)

Have you already published this preprint in a peer-reviewed journal? You can provide the DOI number. This information can be added/ edited after the submission of the preprint.

Publication Date (Optional)

Have you already published this preprint in a peer-reviewed journal? You can provide the Publication date. This information can be added/ edited after the submission of the preprint. 

Publication Citation (Optional)

On each preprint service homepage, you can select the green “Submit a preprint” Button and start the submission process to that specific preprint service. 

Author Assertions

Author assertions about the availability of associated public data, associated preregistrations, and disclosure of any Conflicts of Interest (COIs) increase transparency for readers and make it easier for readers to find the associated data underlying your preprint. Please note that not all preprint providers require author assertions as part of their submission process. 

Conflict of Interest

Conflict of interest (COI) disclosures increase transparency for readers. Examples of potential conflicts of interest include: financial involvement in any entity, such as honoraria, grants, speaking fees, employment, consultancies, stock ownership, expert testimony, and patents or licenses. COIs can also include non-financial interests such as personal or professional relationships or pre-existing beliefs in the subject matter or materials discussed in this preprint.

The COI assertion is made on behalf of all the authors listed for this preprint. 

Do you have a Conflict of interest disclosure to assert for this preprint? Select Yes to disclose any conflicts of interest (COI).  

If No is selected, the authors assert that there are no COIs.

Public data

If any of the data used in the analyses in your preprint are publicly available, select Available to indicate this. A box will appear for you to enter link(s) to your publicly available dataset(s). If your preprint involves multiple datasets posted at different URLs, click the ‘plus’ icon to add more boxes. Only put one URL per box.

If No is selected, the author asserts that data associated with analyses in the preprint are not publicly available. A required text box will appear. Use this box to give more information about why data is not publicly posted, or how others might access the data if it is available under limited circumstances (e.g. after signing a data-sharing agreement).

Public Preregistration

If you registered or Pre-registered your study prior to your preprint and they are publicly available, select Available to indicate this. Two boxes will appear, one to help you indicate the type of registration you created (Analysis Plan, Study Design, or Both), and the second to provide a link to that registration/ pre-registration. A box will appear for you to enter link(s). NOTE: Must be a valid URL, to your publicly available dataset(s). If your preprint involves multiple registrations, Click the “Add another” to link to another.  Only put one URL per box.

If you have a registration or pre-registration that is not publicly available (it may be embargoed), select “Unavailable” and describe why.

If Not Applicable is selected, the author asserts that no analyses are reported in the preprint, and so there is no data that could potentially be made publicly available.