This article was accepted into the corpus but its outbound wikilinks were never NER-processed — typical at the deepest BFS hop or when the run's entity cap was reached. No expansion funnel to show.
| OSF | |
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| Name | OSF |
OSF
OSF is a collaborative research management and open science platform designed to support data sharing, project management, and reproducible workflows across academic, nonprofit, and governmental institutions. The platform integrates tools for versioning, metadata, and persistent identification to facilitate transparent research practices among researchers affiliated with institutions such as Harvard University, Stanford University, University of California, Berkeley, Massachusetts Institute of Technology, and University of Oxford. OSF interfaces with repositories, institutional archives, and publishers including Dryad (repository), Zenodo, arXiv, PLOS, and Springer Nature to streamline preprint submission, data deposition, and collaboration.
OSF provides a web-based hub combining project management, file storage, and registration capabilities for scholars from organizations like National Institutes of Health, Wellcome Trust, Howard Hughes Medical Institute, European Research Council, and National Science Foundation. The platform supports persistent identifiers and metadata standards used by DataCite, Crossref, ORCID, Dublin Core, and Schema.org to improve discoverability and citation tracking for outputs connected to initiatives such as Horizon 2020 and Plan S. Through integrations with services such as GitHub, Dropbox, Google Drive, Box (company), and Figshare, OSF enables interoperable workflows aligning with mandates from funders and publishers like NIH Public Access Policy and Wellcome data policy.
OSF originated from efforts at research institutions and nonprofit organizations to address reproducibility challenges highlighted by events like the Reproducibility Project: Psychology and debates following publications in Science (journal), Nature (journal), and The Lancet. Early development involved collaborations with scholars from Yale University, University of Michigan, University of Cambridge, and technology partners such as Center for Open Science affiliates and open-source communities. Over successive releases, OSF incorporated standards from SPARC initiatives, responded to policy shifts from agencies like US Office of Science and Technology Policy and European Commission, and adopted identifiers promoted by ORCID and DataCite.
The platform’s architecture integrates modular components for storage, metadata, and workflow orchestration, leveraging software practices common to projects at Apache Software Foundation, Linux Foundation, and Open Source Initiative. Core features include project trees, file versioning, and registration snapshots compatible with archival services like LOCKSS and Portico. Authentication and access control interoperate with identity providers such as Shibboleth, InCommon, and CILogon. APIs enable programmatic interaction with tools used in computational research such as Jupyter Notebook, RStudio, MATLAB, Python (programming language), and Git, while export and citation features support linking to bibliographic platforms like Crossref and EndNote.
Researchers apply the platform for preprint workflows linking to bioRxiv, medRxiv, and SSRN; for data-sharing pipelines tied to repositories like Dryad (repository), Figshare, and Zenodo; and for registered reports submitted to journals including PLOS ONE, eLife, and Royal Society Open Science. Educators at institutions such as University of California, Irvine and University of Toronto use it for teaching reproducible methods in courses referencing tools from Carpentries and curricula influenced by reports from National Academies of Sciences, Engineering, and Medicine. Collaborative projects in disciplines from psychology to ecology leverage OSF to coordinate multi-site studies connected to consortia such as ENIGMA Consortium and Human Connectome Project.
Adoption spans universities, research consortia, libraries, and scholarly societies including Association of Research Libraries, Society for Neuroscience, American Geophysical Union, and American Psychological Association. Community contributions and development have come from contributors associated with GitLab, Bitbucket, and academic software groups at University of Washington and Carnegie Mellon University. Training and outreach are often conducted in partnership with programs like Data Carpentry, Software Carpentry, and funder-led workshops by Wellcome Trust and NIH Office of Extramural Research.
Governance structures involve stewardship models similar to those used by nonprofit research infrastructure organizations such as Center for Open Science affiliates, with oversight from advisory boards composed of representatives from universities, funders, and libraries including SPARC, Research Libraries UK, and Association of American Universities. Funding sources historically have included grants and contracts from agencies and foundations like National Science Foundation, National Institutes of Health, Wellcome Trust, Alfred P. Sloan Foundation, and Gates Foundation, alongside institutional subscriptions and service agreements with research institutions.
Critiques have focused on interoperability, sustainability, and governance comparable to debates around platforms like Figshare and Zenodo. Concerns raised by stakeholders including library consortia and funders touch on long-term preservation akin to issues discussed in reviews by Council on Library and Information Resources and audit reports from Office of Management and Budget. Privacy and compliance questions involving regulated data echo controversies encountered with repositories serving clinical research tied to Food and Drug Administration and European Medicines Agency policies. Discussions continue within communities such as Research Data Alliance and National Information Standards Organization about feature priorities, funding models, and alignment with open science mandates.
Category:Open science platforms