Guides @ UF: Open Access Research: Repositories

What Can You Find In Repositories?

Repositories are online collections of free scholarly and creative works, including articles, preprints, theses, dissertations, datasets, reports, conference papers, and open educational resources. Preprints are early versions of research papers, before they are peer-reviewed or published in journals. They are usually screened for basic quality, but they are not peer-reviewed.

Try These First

Digital Commons Network
Free, open-access platform that brings together scholarly work from hundreds of colleges and universities that use the Digital Commons repository system. The content is organized by discipline, making it easy to browse by subject areas.
arXiv
A free preprint server for physics, mathematics, computer science, and related fields, widely used to share early-stage research
PubMed Central (PMC)
Hosts free, full-text versions of biomedical articles, often from NIH-funded research. Most of the content here is open access.
SSRN
A widely used repository that hosts working papers, preprints, and forthcoming articles in legal studies and related social sciences.

Florida-Based Repositories

Florida universities host repositories with research, theses, and unique Florida-focused collections from their students and faculty.

Institutional Repository (IR@UF)
The University of Florida’s Institutional Repository (IR@UF) provides open access to research, theses, and faculty publications created by UF scholars.
Digital Commons @ USF
The University of South Florida’s Digital Commons offers open access to research, theses, journals, and creative works by USF faculty, students, and staff.
DigiNole
Florida State University’s DigiNole Repository includes theses, dissertations, archival collections, and other scholarly materials from FSU.
STARS Digital Repository
STARS (Showcase of Text, Archives, Research & Scholarship) is UCF's institutional repository, providing access to research, creative works, and archival materials from their community.

To find more repositories from other universities, search online using the school name + Repository or school name + Digital Commons.

Discipline Specific Repositories

Multidisciplinary, Science & Engineering, Life & Health Sciences, Social Sciences, Art & Humanities, Law & Policy

Multidisciplinary

Digital Commons Network
Free, open-access platform that brings together scholarly work from hundreds of colleges and universities that use the Digital Commons repository system. The content is organized by discipline, making it easy to browse by subject areas.
Zenodo
Free, open-access repository supported by the European OpenAIRE initiative. It allows researchers from any discipline to upload and share their work with the world.
Preprints.org
Free, open-access platform for sharing early versions of research papers, called pre-prints, before they are peer reviewed or published in journals.
Research Square
Free, open-access platform for sharing early versions of research papers, called pre-prints, before they are peer reviewed or published in journals. Allows updates and links to the final journal version when published.

Science & Engineering

arXiv
A free preprint server for physics, mathematics, computer science, and related fields, widely used to share early-stage research
ChemRxiv
An open-access preprint platform for chemistry and related areas, allowing researchers to post work before peer review.
bioRxiv
A leading preprint repository for biological sciences where researchers share manuscripts before journal submission.
EarthArXiv
A community-run preprint server for earth, planetary, and environmental sciences.
engrXiv
A free preprint repository for engineering research, supporting rapid sharing and open access.

Life & Health Sciences

medRxiv
A preprint server for health sciences, allowing researchers to share medical, clinical, and epidemiological studies before peer review
PubMed Central (PMC)
Hosts free, full-text versions of biomedical articles, often from NIH-funded research. Most of the content here is open access.
AgriXiv
An open-access preprint repository for agriculture and allied sciences, supporting early sharing of research across global communities.

Social Sciences

SocArXiv Papers
A free, open-access preprint server for the social sciences, including sociology, political science, law, and education.
RePEc: Research Papers in Economics
A collaborative database of working papers, preprints, and published research in economics.
PsyArXiv Preprints
A preprint repository for psychology and psychological sciences, allowing researchers to share work before journal publication.
AgEcon Search
A free repository of scholarly papers in agricultural and applied economics, including working papers, conference papers, and reports.

Arts & Humanities

Knowledge Commons
Previously CORE. An open-access repository for humanities scholarship, supporting the sharing of articles, syllabi, datasets, and more by members of the Humanities Commons network.
Hprints
A preprint archive for the arts and fashion, primarily serving researchers in Northern Europe.
e-LiS: Eprints in Library and Information Science
An international open-access repository for scholarly work in library and information science.

Law & Policy

LawArXiv Papers
An open-access legal scholarship repository created by and for the legal community to share preprints and working papers in law.
SSRN
A widely used repository that hosts working papers, preprints, and forthcoming articles in legal studies and related social sciences.

Data Repositories

Unlike regular repositories that focus on articles and papers, data repositories specifically store and share raw research data, datasets, and supporting materials for reuse and verification.

Multidisciplinary, Life & Health Sciences, Environmental & Earth Sciences, Social Sciences & Humanities

Multidisciplinary

Dryad
An open data repository for research in biology, ecology, and medicine, designed to make datasets publicly available and citable.
Figshare
Share and cite data, figures, and datasets across disciplines.

Life & Health Sciences

GenBank
NCBI’s repository for nucleotide sequences.
GEO: Gene Expression Omnibus
Gene expression and functional genomics data.
OpenNeuro
A free platform for sharing and analyzing neuroscience datasets, particularly those involving brain imaging.

Environmental & Earth Sciences

PANGAEA
Earth and environmental science data archive.
NEON Data Portal
Ecological and climate data from U.S. field sites.

Social Sciences & Humanities

Qualitative Data Repository (QDR)
Specializes in storing and sharing qualitative and mixed-methods research data.
ICPSR
Inter-university Consortium for Political and Social Research, a vast archive of social science data. There is some access restriction.