GENERAL DESCRIPTION
The Open Science Framework (OSF) is a tool that promotes open, centralized workflows
by enabling capture of different aspects and products of the research lifecycle, including
developing a research idea, designing a study, storing and analyzing collected data,
and writing and publishing reports or papers. It is developed and maintained by the
Center for Open Science (COS), a nonprofit organization founded in 2013 that conducts
research into scientific practice, builds and supports scientific research communities,
and develops research tools and infrastructure to enable managing and archiving research
[1]. As an organization, the COS encourages openness, integrity, and reproducibility
in research across scientific disciplines [2]. The OSF supports a variety of tools
and services to assist in the research process. This review focuses primarily on the
core functionality of the OSF, with brief descriptions of some of the other existing
tools and services.
FEATURES
The core functionality of the OSF is its ability to create and develop projects. Very
simply, a project functions as a workspace, with the design of a particular project
depending on users and the type of research workflow that they are trying to manage
and preserve. Users might wish to set up a project for a particular paper or specific
experiment or for the work of an entire lab. To create a project, users must set up
a free account with the OSF. Once logged in, users are taken to a dashboard with the
option to create a project. The standard project layout includes a wiki, a log of
recent activity, and spaces to upload files, add tags, and create new components (i.e.,
subprojects). Each user, project, component, and file is given a unique, persistent
uniform resource locator (URL) to enable sharing and promote attribution. Projects
can also be assigned digital object identifiers (DOIs) and archival resource keys
(ARKs) if they are made publicly available. The OSF provides built-in version control
that records changes to project files and previous versions through OSF Storage.
The OSF is intended to be collaborative, and users can easily add contributors to
projects. The OSF supports controlled access, so project members can be assigned different
permissions: read only, read and write, and administrator. Contributors do not have
to set up an OSF account prior to being added to projects. Unregistered contributors
can be added to projects using their full names and email addresses; they will be
contacted with a link to set up an OSF account. Contributors who already have an OSF
account can be added to a project by searching for their names in the OSF.
While the spirit of open science encourages making projects publicly available, there
are options to make all or parts of a project private. The Project Overview page includes
a toggle button that allows those with administrator-level permissions on the project
to determine which parts of the project (if not all) will be public or private. In
general, private projects are not browsable. Users can find public projects online.
Certain components of a public project can be made private; those will be hidden from
public view. To capture impact, the OSF also includes project-level analytics, such
as unique visitors, downloads per project file, and top referrers.
In addition to using unique, persistent URLs, DOIs, and ARKs, the OSF promotes sharing
in a variety of additional ways. A primary one is the option to add a license. The
COS links to resources for choosing a license with a variety of license options available,
including Creative Commons, MIT, Apache, and GNU General Public. A user who does not
wish to use any of the predetermined licenses can upload an alternative license. A
license can apply to the project as a whole, or different licenses can be assigned
to different parts of the project.
While there are many features built into the OSF, the platform also allows third-party
add-ons or integrations that strengthen the functionality and collaborative nature
of the OSF. These add-ons fall into two categories: citation management integrations
and storage integrations. Mendeley and Zotero can be integrated to support citation
management, while Amazon S3, Box, Dataverse, Dropbox, figshare, GitHub, and oneCloud
can be integrated to support storage. The OSF provides unlimited storage for projects,
but individual files are limited to 5 gigabytes (GB) each. Using one of the storage
add-ons eliminates this restriction.
Registration is a major feature of the OSF and its efforts to preserve, provide access
to, and promote transparency in research. Any OSF project can be registered, which
means that a time-stamped version of the project is created that cannot be edited
or deleted and is intended to act as a preserved version of a project. A user can,
however, withdraw a project, which removes the content of the registered project but
leaves behind a record of it. Registered projects can be made public immediately or
embargoed for up to four years. Additionally, DOIs and ARKs can be created for public
registrations. Any content stored on third-party servers is copied as part of the
registration process and stored with the rest of the project content on OSF servers.
USER COMMUNITY AND SERVICES
The COS supports a diverse audience, from researchers and scientists to software developers
to publishers and societies. While many of the features of the OSF are designed to
help researchers create, manage, and preserve research, there are additional free
OSF tools and services that can engage other user groups.
OSF for Institutions allows institutions to create a landing page in the OSF to identify
and connect affiliated users and projects. OSF users can identify their projects as
being affiliated with particular institutions, and additional features, such as single-sign
on and institutional branding of the landing page, can provide a seamless user experience
for institutional affiliates using the OSF.
OSF for Meetings provides a space to share posters and presentations from meetings
and conferences. When a user registers a conference or meeting, the OSF will provide
a branded, persistent page where conference attendees can upload posters and presentations,
as well as browse content added by themselves or colleagues before, during, or after
the event.
OSF Preprints lets OSF users share preprints for feedback and to gain exposure. Each
preprint receives a unique identifier, and users can upload supplementary files as
needed. Users also have access to analytics for their uploaded preprints.
In addition to engaging with user communities through these services, the COS maintains
an Ambassador program, which works at local levels to promote and support open science
at research institutions. These ambassadors represent the COS and can provide training
and additional resources about the OSF or other COS products. A list of current COS
ambassadors is available online.
DOCUMENTATION AND TECHNICAL REQUIREMENTS
As an open source service, the OSF has freely available documentation and support.
The OSF home page has a link to support, including FAQs, contact information, and
a set of OSF Guides that give step-by-step guidance and instructions on using the
OSF. The COS also delivers regular workshops, webinars, and online tutorials. Past
webinars can be viewed on the COS YouTube channel.
Access to the OSF requires only a working computer and Internet connection. Larger
collaborations such as the OSF for Institutions program require additional configuration
by the COS and institutional information technology staff.
CASE STUDIES
One of the most prominent uses of the OSF tool is the Psychology Reproducibility Study,
a collaboration between the University of Virginia and the COS. The more than 270
researchers involved in this project replicated 100 top psychology studies to see
if they could produce the same results [3]. While the study results are interesting
(they were able to replicate fewer than half), what is more interesting in this context
is that the entire research process for each study—including data, analysis, publications,
and comments—was openly shared on the OSF [4]. The Psychology Reproducibility Study
highlights the strengths of the OSF, including collaboration features, the ability
to create subprojects, and citation features, which allow researchers (and authors
like us) to cite various components of the project. While this project is probably
larger than most using the OSF, it serves as a good example of how health sciences
researchers might integrate the tool into their research workflows.
A smaller-scale example of OSF usage comes from the University of California–San Francisco
(UCSF) Library, where, in the fall of 2015, a team of librarians used the OSF for
an assessment project [5]. They selected the OSF because they needed a tool that would
allow them to easily keep notes, upload files, collaborate, and share information
(Figure 1).
Figure 1
University of California–San Francisco (UCSF) Open Science Framework (OSF) project
page
Available at https://osf.io/d8nje/.
While initial response to the OSF was positive, some team members found it confusing
to navigate the various components and had trouble locating particular documents or
wiki pages. The wiki feature also proved not to be as user-friendly as they had hoped,
because the formatting options were limited and editing took some getting used to.
Some of these challenges might have been due to the design of the project in the OSF;
a more well-thought-out project with less hierarchy might have been easier to navigate.
In the end, the team decided that while they liked some aspects of the tool, particularly
the ability to assign a DOI to a project, their institutional wiki or Box account
would have been a better tool for this project. They did note, however, that the OSF
would provide an excellent way to collaborate with colleagues at other institutions
who do not have access to UCSF-only tools.
SUMMARY
Because of its focus on openness and unique identifiers, the OSF can be an excellent
tool for promoting best practices around reproducibility, transparency, and research
data management. The high degree of flexibility means that projects can be customized
easily to fit a variety of needs, from small projects to large research collaborations.
Moreover, the COS is continually working to add more components and capabilities to
the tool. As with all research tools, the usefulness of the OSF depends on how easily
it can be adapted into a researcher’s workflow. The librarians at UCSF found it to
be less useful than other tools they had available to them, but the example of the
Psychology Reproducibility Study shows how the unique registration and collaboration
features can provide a real benefit.
Beyond researchers’ workflows, local institutional requirements or policies can also
affect how the OSF can be used. For example, whether or not the OSF is Health Insurance
Portability and Accountability Act (HIPAA)–compliant depends upon an institution’s
security and privacy practices and would require further conversations with an institution’s
information technology administration. Anyone interested in using the OSF is encouraged
to create a free account and give it a try. Librarians might also consider inviting
a local COS ambassador to give a presentation or contact the COS for a presentation
on the OSF as a service or tool.