As a free and open source Open Science/Open Research development tool, the Open Science Framework (OSF) allows for the scholarly, research commons community to connect their entire research cycle with other researchers worldwide.
Type of Material:
Development Tool
Recommended Uses:
OSF is best used for organizing research materials. Although a researcher may work individually, the website encourages and facilitates collaboration by allowing materials to shared, contributors can be added, and virtual meeting can be accommodated. It is especially useful for self-paced research projects.
Technical Requirements:
Website was tested using Chrome, Microsoft Edge, FireFox, and Google Chrome; all of these browser run the site effectively. The site will not run with Internet Explorer.
Identify Major Learning Goals:
To help the user organize, store, and share research.
Main Use: "OSF integrates with the scientist's daily workflow. OSF helps document and archive study designs, materials, and data. OSF facilitates sharing of materials and data within a laboratory or across laboratories. OSF also facilitates transparency of laboratory research and provides a network design that details and credits individual contributions for all aspects of the research process" (About OSF, para. 4, retrieved from https://help.osf.io/hc/en-us/articles/360019737894).
Target Student Population:
Target Population: Professional researchers appear to be the target population; however, graduate and upper level college student researchers across all disciplines may benefit from using the tools on this site. OSF has partnered with approximately 47 postsecondary institutions and ORCID, Inc.
Prerequisite Knowledge or Skills:
Users have to understand workflow as it relates to research projects.
Users should have access to and understand external storage (such as Google Drive, OneDrive) and citation services (such as Mendeley).
Users must be able to manage files (upload/drag and drop, create folders, work with ZIP files).
Users should have knowledge of licensing options (CC BY, CC0, CC BY-NC ) and permissions.
Content Quality
Rating:
Strengths:
The site provides a comprehensive set of tools for researchers to organize their workflow. The site is reliable, and the content is consistent and accurate across the site.
The site not only provides a space to creat new projects. It provides cloud storage with a choice of locations (US, Canada, Germany, and others) and advice on what location to choose. Once you create your first project, you can use its structure as a template for future projects. This will allow for more efficiency. It also allows for content importing, autogenerates citations, provides analytice for public projects, time stamps copies of the the project, allows for multiple types of permissions (read, read and write, administrator), syncs to external services (Add-ons), and easy to follow "guides" for almost every task.
The site is complete with mutliple functions, settings, and supports; however, it is still quite easy to navigate with a very clean dashboard as a starting point. It is very organized and appropriate to its purpose.
The site offers a meeting and conference platform where researchers can add a talk or a poster.
It is useful to both novice and veteran researchers who are looking for a means to locate research related to a focal topic, stay organized, analyze data and share results.
Concerns:
Site does use cookies.
Potential Effectiveness as a Teaching Tool
Rating:
Strengths:
The site provides appropriate tools for organizing the workflow of research projects. It is focused and easy to navigate. Although it represents a linear process, it provides a multitude of settings that can accommodate the unique needs of each project/researcher. It is flxible and versatile.
The site provides an innovative way to organize research. Although the same tools are available separately (storage, filing sharing, meetings), the site brings everything a research will need together in one place.
The site encourages collaboration by allowing projects to be public. Researchers have opportunities to contribute to or access other works by searching the database.
The site provides examples, instructions, and explanations throughout the process. These are clearly identifed with the use of information icons. The site also provides an extensive user guide.
Concerns:
Researchers may find the site more effective and efficient over time. As with any technology, the first time through presents some challenges. Although all the setting and options are valid, appropriate, and very well organized, the learning involved may slow down the researcher initially.
Adding some audio and/or video instructions might appeal to some users.
Ease of Use for Both Students and Faculty
Rating:
Strengths:
The OSF website requires you to sign-up/sign-in. There are many ways to do so, including creating a new OSF account, by using or linking to an ORCID password, through social media accounts, or through one of approximately 47 partner institutions you may belong to. The registration process is simple and includes reCAPTCHA security measures throughout.
Once signed in, there is a very clean and clear dashboard layout that provides three main options to begin. You may search for projects, create a new projects, or choose from a list of your existing projects.
Once a project template is created, it is easy to work within. Files can added using either an upload or drag and drop option. Information and help features are found throughout. The template is uncluttered and easy to naviage. The buttons and menus are easy to find, and the layout, text fonts and sizes, colors, and banners are consistent. All features appear to be in working order. The site appears simple but is quite robust, providing opportunities to add contibutors to your work, choose licensing options, sync your projects to external services such as OneDrive, and automatically create citations in numerous formats (including APA, Chicago, and MLA).
Guides might be useful to introduce early college level researcher to the process.
Concerns:
Guides have screenshots to acccompany text. It might be helpful to generate audio/video to accompany the instructions.
Creative Commons:
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