{"id":440,"date":"2018-12-04T15:52:18","date_gmt":"2018-12-04T15:52:18","guid":{"rendered":"http:\/\/libraries.mit.edu\/data-management\/?page_id=440"},"modified":"2026-08-12T15:34:06","modified_gmt":"2026-08-12T15:34:06","slug":"osf","status":"publish","type":"page","link":"https:\/\/libraries.mit.edu\/data-management\/store\/osf\/","title":{"rendered":"Open Science Framework"},"content":{"rendered":"<div style=\"padding: 15px 20px;margin-top: 20px;margin-bottom: 20px;background-color: #ecebeb\">\n<p><strong>Changes to OSF<\/strong><\/p>\n<p>On 2026-08-11, the Center of Open Science (COS) announced that it will cease support for OSF Projects as part of their pivot to concentrating on \u201c<a title=\"https:\/\/www.cos.io\/lifecycle-open-science\" href=\"https:\/\/www.cos.io\/lifecycle-open-science\" data-outlook-id=\"eabb4ed4-8210-4248-b7c2-66384364eab0\">lifecycle open science<\/a>.\u201d These changes are detailed in <a href=\"https:\/\/www.cos.io\/osf-changes\">OSF&#8217;s description of changes<\/a>.<\/p>\n<p>What this means:<\/p>\n<ul>\n<li><em>Starting November 16, 2026<\/em>, no new projects or child components of existing projects can be created on OSF.<\/li>\n<li><em>After February 19, 2027<\/em>, all public and private OSF projects will become read-only. You will continue to have the same access, and all links and DOI identifiers will continue to resolve indefinitely.<\/li>\n<li>It is likely that support and storage for private projects will cease completely at some point in the future.<\/li>\n<\/ul>\n<p>If you use OSF Projects, here is what you can do now:<\/p>\n<ul>\n<li>Assess any public projects\n<ul>\n<li>If they are complete, you probably don&#8217;t need to do anything<\/li>\n<li>If they are active, start planning for:\n<ul>\n<li>how you want to wrap them up<\/li>\n<li>where these collaborations and components can be moved to continue work<\/li>\n<\/ul>\n<\/li>\n<li>Reach out to <a href=\"mailto:data-management@mit.edu\">data-management@mit.edu<\/a> with questions and assistance in finding solutions<\/li>\n<\/ul>\n<\/li>\n<li>Assess any private projects\n<ul>\n<li>Consider if it is appropriate to make them public<\/li>\n<li>Start planning for:\n<ul>\n<li>how you want to wrap them up<\/li>\n<li>where these collaborations and components can be moved to either preserve or continue work<\/li>\n<\/ul>\n<\/li>\n<li>Reach out to <a href=\"mailto:data-management@mit.edu\">data-management@mit.edu<\/a> with questions and assistance in finding solutions<\/li>\n<\/ul>\n<\/li>\n<\/ul>\n<p>If you use OSF for <span id=\"hs_cos_wrapper_module_1579521166473565\" class=\"hs_cos_wrapper hs_cos_wrapper_widget_container hs_cos_wrapper_type_widget_container\" data-hs-cos-general-type=\"widget_container\" data-hs-cos-type=\"widget_container\">preregistration and study planning, or sharing preprints, you&#8217;re good! These OSF functions should only improve going forward. No actions to take.<\/span><\/p>\n<\/div>\n<p><a href=\"https:\/\/osf.io\/\">OSF (Open Science Framework)<\/a> is free, open-source infrastructure for documenting and sharing the research process, developed and maintained by the nonprofit Center for Open Science (COS). OSF supports two core functions:<\/p>\n<ul>\n<li>A structured registration workflow for publishing study plans with linked data, code, materials, and papers as a persistent, citable record of the research process.<\/li>\n<li>Community-operated preprint services \u2014 infrastructure for research communities, journals, and institutions to share and discover working papers and open-access publications.<\/li>\n<\/ul>\n<p>OSF is free to use, assigns persistent identifiers (DOIs) to records, and is maintained by a nonprofit with no commercial interest in the research it holds.<\/p>\n<h2><a id=\"OSFforMIT\"><\/a>OSF for MIT<\/h2>\n<p>MIT affiliates can sign into OSF with MIT credentials <a href=\"https:\/\/osf.io\/institutions\/mit\/\" target=\"_blank\" rel=\"noreferrer noopener\">here<\/a>\u00a0(Choose &#8220;login&#8221; and then select &#8220;login through your institution&#8221;). Use this <a href=\"https:\/\/osf.io\/institutions\/mit\/\">OSF for MIT portal<\/a> to affiliate your registrations and pre-prints with MIT.<\/p>\n<h2>OSF in Open Science and Open Access<\/h2>\n<p>Open science is an approach to research that emphasizes transparency, reproducibility, and accessibility at every stage of the research process \u2014 from study planning through to publication and data sharing. OSF can be part of the infrastructure supporting this approach.<\/p>\n<p>Where OSF fits in the open scholarship landscape:<\/p>\n<table class=\"pentagram\" style=\"width: 98.6368%\">\n<thead>\n<tr>\n<th style=\"width: 14.5861%\">Stage<\/th>\n<th style=\"width: 32.8515%\">What you need<\/th>\n<th style=\"width: 23.5217%\">Recommended tool<\/th>\n<\/tr>\n<\/thead>\n<tbody>\n<tr>\n<td style=\"width: 14.5861%\">Study planning<\/td>\n<td style=\"width: 32.8515%\">Document hypotheses &amp; methods<\/td>\n<td style=\"width: 23.5217%\">OSF Registries (preregistration)<\/td>\n<\/tr>\n<tr>\n<td style=\"width: 14.5861%\">Data collection &amp; analysis<\/td>\n<td style=\"width: 32.8515%\">Active file management &amp; code version control<\/td>\n<td style=\"width: 23.5217%\">GitHub, <a href=\"https:\/\/libraries.mit.edu\/data-management\/store\/backups\/\">institutional storage<\/a><\/td>\n<\/tr>\n<tr>\n<td style=\"width: 14.5861%\">Data archiving<\/td>\n<td style=\"width: 32.8515%\">Long-term, citable data deposit<\/td>\n<td style=\"width: 23.5217%\"><a href=\"https:\/\/libraries.mit.edu\/data-management\/share\/find-repository\/\">Zenodo, Dryad, institutional repository<\/a><\/td>\n<\/tr>\n<tr>\n<td style=\"width: 14.5861%\">Sharing findings early<\/td>\n<td style=\"width: 32.8515%\">Preprint before peer review<\/td>\n<td style=\"width: 23.5217%\">OSF Preprints server (community-specific)<\/td>\n<\/tr>\n<tr>\n<td style=\"width: 14.5861%\">Connecting the full record<\/td>\n<td style=\"width: 32.8515%\">Link plan \u2192 outputs \u2192 outcomes<\/td>\n<td style=\"width: 23.5217%\">OSF Registries (linked registration)<\/td>\n<\/tr>\n<tr>\n<td style=\"width: 14.5861%\">Publication<\/td>\n<td style=\"width: 32.8515%\">Peer-reviewed, open-access publishing<\/td>\n<td style=\"width: 23.5217%\">Open access journals, <a href=\"https:\/\/libraries.mit.edu\/scholarly\/publishing\/\">institutional open access support<\/a><\/td>\n<\/tr>\n<\/tbody>\n<\/table>\n<p>Don\u2019t know what preprints are or are interested in exploring preprint options? Contact the <a href=\"https:\/\/libraries.mit.edu\/scholarly\/\">Scholarly Publishing<\/a> team at <a href=\"https:\/\/libanswers.mit.edu\/ask-scholarly-communications\">Ask Scholarly Communications<\/a>. Contact <a href=\"mailto:data-management@mit.edu\">data-management@mit.edu<\/a> for assistance with finding solutions for data.<\/p>\n<h2>Resources<\/h2>\n<p>OSF Support Resources (from COS)<\/p>\n<ul>\n<li>OSF Help Center: step-by-step guides for registrations, preprints, account management, and more (<a href=\"http:\/\/help.osf.io\">help.osf.io<\/a>)<\/li>\n<li>OSF FAQs: answers to common questions about account setup, privacy settings, DOIs, and registrations (<a href=\"https:\/\/help.osf.io\/article\/406-faqs-home-page\">https:\/\/help.osf.io\/article\/406-faqs-home-page<\/a>)<\/li>\n<li>OSF Support: contact the OSF support team directly for technical issues (<a href=\"mailto:support@osf.io\">support@osf.io<\/a>).<\/li>\n<li>OSF YouTube Channel: recorded tutorials and webinars on using OSF and other open science topics <a href=\"http:\/\/youtube.com\/CenterforOpenScience\">youtube.com\/CenterforOpenScience<\/a>).<\/li>\n<\/ul>\n<p>If you would like assistance using <a href=\"https:\/\/osf.io\/institutions\/mit\/\">OSF for MIT<\/a> or need help determining if OSF will meet your needs, contact <a href=\"https:\/\/libraries.mit.edu\/data-management\/\">Data Management Services<\/a> at <a href=\"mailto:data-management@mit.edu\">data-management@mit.edu<\/a>.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"<p>Changes to OSF On 2026-08-11, the Center of Open Science (COS) announced that it will cease support for OSF Projects as part of their pivot to concentrating on \u201clifecycle open science.\u201d These changes are detailed in OSF&#8217;s description of changes. What this means: Starting November 16, 2026, no new projects or child components of existing projects can be created on OSF. After February 19, 2027, all public and private OSF projects will become read-only. You will continue to have the same access, and all links and DOI identifiers will continue to resolve indefinitely. It is likely that support and storage [&hellip;]<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":1,"featured_media":0,"parent":16,"menu_order":2,"comment_status":"closed","ping_status":"closed","template":"templates\/page.php","meta":{"footnotes":""},"class_list":["post-440","page","type-page","status-publish","hentry"],"acf":[],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/libraries.mit.edu\/data-management\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/pages\/440","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/libraries.mit.edu\/data-management\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/pages"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/libraries.mit.edu\/data-management\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/page"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/libraries.mit.edu\/data-management\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/1"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/libraries.mit.edu\/data-management\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=440"}],"version-history":[{"count":18,"href":"https:\/\/libraries.mit.edu\/data-management\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/pages\/440\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":1123,"href":"https:\/\/libraries.mit.edu\/data-management\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/pages\/440\/revisions\/1123"}],"up":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/libraries.mit.edu\/data-management\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/pages\/16"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/libraries.mit.edu\/data-management\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=440"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}