Preprint servers allow researchers to make their findings available to the public prior to publication in a peer reviewed journal. This allows researchers to receive feedback from their research community prior to publication, to "test the waters," and to "stake their claim" on a topic prior to publication. Some journals, however, will not accept articles that have appeared on a preprint server -- check the publications policy for the journals to which you hope to submit your paper.
Listed below are notable preprint servers for psychology research but there are many other preprint servers in other fields, including medicine and biological sciences.
Postprint Servers: Another way to make research available to the public is to post previously published works in an online postprint repository. eScholarship is the University of California's open access publishing platform that allows UC researchers to post the final author version of their articles. For more information see UC Open Access Policies.
Why Open Access (OA)? Open Access literature is free and available to anyone. Researchers anywhere in the world ccan read the scholarly output that has been made available in an open-access journal. This means that a local social worker or therapist who does not have access to all the journals subscribed to by UC Berkeley can read the research findings disseminated in an OA journal.
How OA journals support themselves: Rather than charging readers a subscription fee, OA journals often use the "author-pays" model in which they charge authors and article processing charge (APC). The UC Berkeley Library offers Berkeley authors reimbursement for their APCs through the Berkeley Research Impact Initiative (BRII). For more information and an application for funding, consult the BRII website.
OA Journals: This selective list of high-quality journals; the journals listed below are peer-reviewed and online.
In addition to these fully open access journals, most traditional subscription-based journals also allow authors to pay an additional fee to make their articles open access. These are known as hybrid journals. Keep in mind that the BRII program does not reimburse authors publishing in hybrid journals.