One of the most recent additions to the Digital Research Services resources is the Open Science Framework (OSF) - a free, open-source online research platform, designed to support researchers to openly, and transparently share their work at all stages of the research lifecycle. The University of Edinburgh community can sign up using the institution option and EASE login credentials.
An introductory lunchtime event took place on 30th August 2023, with Gretchen Gueguen, from the Centre of Open Science, defining what open science is, referring to practices such as data management, code and materials sharing, preregistration, preprints and replication.
Worth mentioning is that open science adds credibility, increases the visibility of your research and is a key point for the vast majority of funders' policy.
Three main OSF features were noted;
- Projects, where users can organise materials and information about a project or a team, with different licensing options and privacy settings.
- Registrations, where users can present research plans, reducing HARKing (Hypothesizing After the Results are Known) and increasing transparency, while they confirm the exact state of the project at important points of the life cycle.
- Preprints, a complete manuscript shared with a public audience without necessarily undergoing peer review process, with the benefit of accelerating scholarly communication.
Some examples and information on the different features available were presented by Gretchen. In the Q&A session, colleagues from the UoE discussed among others the storage space within OSF and additional storage options. Emma Wilson, PhD Candidate in the Centre for Clinical Brain Sciences, shared her experiences as an OSF user and her slides are available within OSF here. We followed-up with Emma after the event to discuss her work further and created a case study to help other researchers get started with OSF.
Read this case studyThe last speaker, Mark Lawson from Childlight Global Data Institute located at Moray House School of Education & Sport, highlighted how OSF helped his team overcome common challenges of international collaborative research. Working with a team of more than 25 data fellows dotted across the world (this number will be increasing to 60+ soon), he especially valued the data sharing facilities of OSF, as well as the single point of control: if you upload a file with the same name as one that already exists on the platform, OSF will integrate and version control it automatically. He also appreciated that OSF was a very dynamic platform, with lots of improvements in its structure over the time he has been using it.
Keep an eye on the Digital Research calendar for upcoming events in our News & Updates pages.