Preprints nas Ciências Sociais

Introduction: The established communication pattern occurs, as a rule, through communication channels, each one with its importance and representativeness. Since formal channels were privileged because they had undergone previous analysis and evaluations, however, this linear perspective was broken by the internet, which allows, from Open Science, sharing and immediate access to scientific publications and, also, the participation of the reader, the example of preprints. Objective: It intends, as a general objective, to interpret the understanding, level of acceptance and use of preprints as a means of dissemination and submission of originals. Therefore, it outlines specific objectives: a) to infer the understanding that researchers in the area of Social Sciences have about preprints repository; b) classify the level of acceptance of preprints by researchers in the area of Social Sciences; and, c) dimension the degree of use, publication of preprints by researchers in the area of Social Sciences. Methodology: This is a descriptive research when it seeks to observe, classify, explain and interpret the data obtained from the analysis. As for the object, it is characterized as research in a web environment, as the data collection takes place in electronic format with information registration, via the internet. Regarding the approach, it is classified as qualitative research, since it develops selection and abstraction of original data obtained in the research, for later analysis and dissemination of the study results. Data collection took place through the application of an Electronic Questionnaire built with open and closed questions. Results: As a contribution, we present the profile of the respondents characterized as baby boomers with institutional links in several Higher Education Institutions in different regions of the country, most of them aged between 30 and 55 years dedicated to research. Most respondents demonstrated knowledge about preprints. Regarding the level of acceptance of preprints in Social Sciences, there seems to be no unanimity, 11 respondents said yes, 8 answered no and the remaining 11 reported not knowing about it. As for the motivation to submit preprints, 89% of the researchers were positively motivated to submit preprints. Final Considerations: It is possible to conclude with Harnad (1991) that in the post-Gutemberg Galaxy ride, informal and formal discoveries, arbitrated or not, are landmarks and need signaling to let the hitchhiker accomplish what is still missing. From this point of view, Scientific Communication can refer to the time since when the preprint exists, resists and how it currently has greater and better conditions to be part of Open Science.