The term “Open Science” is a very broad term referring to the practice of sharing of scientific and scholarly products – from publications to methods to protocols to data – in an openly accessible and reusable way. It does not, typically, refer to a particular platform.

A very useful platform for doing this work is the Open Science Framework at https://osf.io/. This is a platform where you can keep your projects, including your files, data, and protocols, in one location. You can control your access, letting just certain people access it, or making it public. For information on preregistration, see this webpage from the Center for Open Science (which runs the Open Science Framework): https://cos.io/prereg/. They have lots of written information about how to do preregistration, as well as webinars, templates, teaching materials, and more.

Here is a list of studies that have been published that were preregistered: https://www.zotero.org/groups/479248/osf/items/collectionKey/VKXUAZM7

They also have some example preregistrations in various disciplines that were done through OSF here: https://osf.io/e6auq/wiki/Example%20Preregistrations/?view

There is a similar concept called “Registered Reports” – this involves having peer review done on your methods / protocols prior to data collection. This can be related to preregistration in that you then register the methods after they’ve been reviewed, and some journals offer this service and it can be linked to OSF’s preregistration tools. Again, the Center for Open Science has a great informative page about that topic here: https://cos.io/rr/

You might also be interested in another protocols sharing platform called protocols.io, which does not have registration built in but may be a helpful tool for putting together and sharing your protocols.

Contact the Digital Scholarship and Publishing team to ask a question, set up a consultation, or learn more about the library's research data support services.