Open Science

Open science is about transparency, sharing, and inclusivity.

Open science is a global movement that aims to make scientific research and its outcomes freely accessible to everyone. By fostering practices like data sharing and preregistration, open science not only accelerates scientific progress but also strengthens trust in research findings.

Adopting open science practices can enhance the quality, credibility, and reach of your research. Open science is a collaborative effort that welcomes everyone—regardless of role or experience—to participate in creating a more equitable and trustworthy research ecosystem.

Transparency:

Making research visible

Sharing:

Making research accessible and usable

Inclusivity:

Involving and crediting more contributors to research

These principles aim to democratize access to research, promote equitable resource distribution, foster accountability and trustworthiness, accelerate self-correction, and improve rigor and reproducibility.

The Open Science Framework (OSF) is designed to facilitate open science practices throughout the entire research process. Whether you're preregistering a study, organizing and documenting your data, or sharing final results, OSF provides a centralized platform to support transparency and collaboration.

At the Center for Open Science (COS), we advocate for lifecycle open science. There are open scholarship activities at every stage of the research lifecycle (see figure above) that individually and collectively contribute to improving science, with everyone playing a role:

Researchers enact open science in their work and advocate for broader adoption in their communities.
Funders make open science part of the selection process, and conditions for grantees conducting research.
Publishers make open science part of the review process, and conditions for articles published in their journals.
Institutions make open science part of academic training, and part of the selection process for research positions and evaluation for advancement and promotion.
Societies make open science part of their awards, events, and scholarly norms.

Open Science Practices

There are many different open science practices. Here are practices that are high priorities at COS.

Open Access and Preprints

Open access and preprints increase the accessibility of research findings by making research articles and publications freely available to readers. Share papers via OSF.

Open Data, Protocols, Materials, and Code

Open data, protocols, materials, and code promote transparency, reproducibility, and collaboration making research content freely accessible, which enables others to scrutinize, replicate, and build on the research. Use the OSF for managing, archiving, and sharing research.

Preregistration

Preregistration is a practice that enhances research transparency and accountability by requiring researchers to register their study's hypotheses, methods, and analysis plans before conducting the research, thereby reducing the likelihood of data manipulation and selective reporting.

Registered Reports

Registered Reports is a two-stage peer review process that improves research rigor and reproducibility by reducing publication bias and prioritizing transparency and accountability.

Open Source Software

Open source software allows for collaborative development by a community of volunteers, provides cost savings, increased security, flexibility, transparency, and can be customized to meet specific needs. COS software is open source on GitHub.

Team Science

Team science is a collaborative approach to research that integrates diverse perspectives and expertise to address complex problems, offering benefits such as improved research quality, inclusiveness, productivity, and translation of scientific discoveries into real-world applications. See examples of team science in action.

Open Evaluation and Peer Review

Transparent peer review and open evaluation aim to increase engagement and accountability in the peer review process and throughout the research lifecycle, to promote a more open and collaborative research culture, and increase trust in the scientific process. Check out organizations experimenting with open evaluation and peer review such as eLife, Peer Community In, and Lifecycle Journal.