The Open Science Framework

The Open Science Framework (OSF) is a project management, storage and collaboration platform that is used by many scientists. In an OSF project, you can: - Register a preregistration - Register a preprint - Store and share project documentation - Link external services, such as git(hub) repositories, publication packages, Research Drive (owncloud) folders, etc. - ... and much more, such as obtaining Open science badges!.

See this link for more information on the functionality of OSF and the OSF guides for many FAQs and technical documentation.

We recommend using the OSF as a central place for your project, especially if you will produce multiple publications in a project.

  1. Link your OSF project to the SYNC lab OSF page (Log in > Components > Link Projects). No worries, the SYNC lab collaborators cannot automatically edit your linked project!
  2. Register preregistrations (Registrations > New registration) and Preprints in the relevant components. If your preregistration concerns one manuscript, we recommend creating a separate component in which you link all relevant materials (publication package, preregistration, code, preprint if applicable, etc.) belonging to that manuscript. A project can contain multiple Registrations and Preprints. Be sure to provide good metadata, preferably choose a CC BY 4.0 license and create a DOI so that your preregistration is citable.
  3. Data: you can link OSF with external storage (see below) or store data on the OSF itself (choose the German storage site). On the OSF itself, there is now a storage limit of 5 GB for private and 50 GB for public projects. If you store on OSF directly, please take privacy into account at all times
  4. Code and software: you can link OSF with a Github repository in case your preprocessing pipeline, processing steps or experimental files are stored there (see below). If your code is however not code-worthy, we recommend storing the code in the publication package or on OSF itself.
  5. Link your OSF profile to your ORCID account so that there cannot be any confusion as to who you are.

Connecting the OSF to external services

Via the Add-on tab, you can connect the OSF with several external services if OSF itself does not provide enough storage. Note that this will not store data on the OSF itself!

SURF Research Drive (via Owncloud)

Connecting with an Owncloud service like the Research Drive goes via a WebDAV connection. All changes made in the selected Research Drive folder will become visible in the OSF component, but the data are still stored at the EUR. Note that you can only make 1 Research Drive connection per OSF component (multiple connections per project are possible).

Please note the following:

How to link a Research Drive folder to OSF

Figshare or a publication package in the EDR

You can link 1 publication package (1 Figshare link) per OSF component, so that the publication package appears in your OSF project. This way, you can license your data (not possible in OSF) and provide metadata but still link it to your OSF project for more context. Click here for a tutorial.

Github repository

If you stored code on Github (for re-use, think about licensing!), you can link your repository to an OSF component. Again, you can only link 1 repository per OSF component. See this link for how to do this.