Editing Social Science Research Network (section)

== Operations ==
Academic papers in [[Portable Document Format]] can be uploaded directly to the SSRN site by authors and are then available around the world for download.<ref>In case the web page [''formerly''] at https://support.ssrn.com/knowledgebase.php?article=67 is now a [[link rot|"dead link"]]<!-- Note: if "dead link" isn't in quotes, this page will throw a false positive on template maintenance script runs. -->, please see (instead) this 'extant' web page: {{cite web |date=2014-12-03 |title=Submit a Paper to SSRN |url=https://support.ssrn.com/knowledgebase.php?article=28 |url-status=dead |archive-url=https://web.archive.org/web/20160629230306/https://support.ssrn.com/knowledgebase.php?article=28 |access-date=February 3, 2022 |publisher=[[SSRN]] |quote=(QUOTE:) [...] you upload your PDF |archivedate=June 29, 2016}}</ref>  Users can also subscribe to abstracting emails covering a broad range of research areas and topic specialties. These distributing emails contain abstracts (with links to the full text where applicable) of papers recently submitted to SSRN in the respective field.

SSRN, like other preprint services, circulates publications throughout the scholarly community at an early stage, permitting the author to incorporate comments into the final version of the paper before its publication in a journal. Moreover, even if access to the published paper is restricted, access to the original working paper remains open through SSRN, so long as the author decides to keep the paper up.  Often authors take papers down at the request of publishers, particularly if they are published by commercial or university presses that depend on payment for paper copies or online access.<ref>{{cite web | url=https://www.pijssl.com/p/current-issue.html| title=Praxis International Journal of Social Science and Literature | accessdate=2020-03-21 | publisher=Pijssl.com|date=2021-07-21|language=english|author=Ashish SIngh}}</ref>

As of 2019, download by users is generally subject to registration and/or completion of a [[ReCAPTCHA]] challenge and therefore SSRN is not considered by some to be a suitable [[open access]] location,<ref>{{cite web |url=https://support.unpaywall.org/support/solutions/articles/44002140100-what-counts-as-an-open-access-location- |title=What counts as an Open Access location?|author=Richard Orr |date=2020-12-31 |publisher=[[Unpaywall]]}}</ref> unlike [[open archive]]s like most [[institutional repository|institutional repositories]]. Publishers and institutions can upload papers and charge a fee for readers to download them.<ref name="About_SSRN">{{cite web |url=http://www.ssrn.com/update/general/mjensen.html |title=About SSRN |first=Michael C. |last=Jensen |author-link=Michael C. Jensen |date=2 February 2012 |publisher=Social Science Research Network |access-date=30 December 2013}}</ref>

On SSRN, authors and papers are ranked by their number of downloads, which has become an informal indicator of popularity on prepress and [[Open access (publishing)|open access]] sites.<ref>{{cite journal|last1=Black|first1=Bernard S.|last2=Caron|first2=Paul|title=Ranking Law Schools: Using SSRN to Measure Scholarly Performance |ssrn=784764|id=U of Texas law, Law and Econ Research Paper No. 52; U of Cincinnati Public Law Research Paper No. 05-14|journal=Indiana Law Journal|issue=Symposium on The Next Generation of Law School Rankings|volume=81|year=2006}}</ref>