Center for Open Science: Proposal for NSF 19-537 Mid-Scale Research Infrastructure

The Center for Open Science (COS) proposes to undertake a Mid-scale RI-1 Implementation Project entitled, Expanding open infrastructure for robust, open, reproducible research, primarily in association with the SBE Directorate. Reproducibility is the ability to obtain independent evidence supporting scientific findings. Recent investigations suggest that reproducibility of published findings is lower than expected or desired, thus interfering with research progress. COS’s Open Science Framework (OSF) enables rigorous, reproducible science by providing collaboration, registration, and data management support across the entire research lifecycle. With support from NSF 19-537, OSF will become essential mainstream infrastructure supporting researchers’, institutions’, and federal agencies’ priorities to maximize return on investment in research. Adoption of open science behaviors via OSF will enable rigor and reproducibility in harnessing the data revolution, increase accessibility and inclusivity of research for all, stimulate discovery, and accelerate progress in science. Seeded with private philanthropy in 2012, the open-source OSF’s user base and key performance indicators have shown rapid, non-linear growth since inception. OSF is now a popular, robust, and important infrastructure for registering studies and analysis plans; managing and archiving research data, code, and materials; and accelerating open or controlled sharing of research outcomes and all supporting research contents. This mid-scale NSF research infrastructure grant will build on OSF’s success by meeting four major objectives: 1. Expand OSF functionality and workflows to meet the needs of a broad number of research disciplines and communities; 2. Integrate OSF with other established scholarly infrastructure to make search, discovery, transfer, and preservation of scholarly content and metadata more efficient; 3. Manage OSF design for efficient and sustainable long-term service; 4. Provide training to improve effectiveness of registration and results reporting and ensure inclusivity of beneficiaries to these innovations.