Changes to OSF Projects: Overview and Q&A

Welcome to all of you who are joining us. We're going to start in just a minute as we start to see uh some more folks come on. So, thanks thanks for joining and hold on for one minute. Okay, we will get started. Uh, hello everyone and welcome. I'm Lisa Quavvis Shaw, chief operating officer at the Center for Open Science or COOS and I'll be moderating today's session. Uh, firstly, uh, just thank you for joining us. We know that the changes coming to OSF and specifically uh in phasing out OSF projects are significant and that many of you have questions about what this means for your research, your current workflows and the future of OSF. Uh many of you uh also kind of offer a range of research support at your institutions and I'm sure have some similar questions um you know among all attendees. And so we're just grateful to all of you for engaging with us today and in this process. Our goal is to give you both uh some context and also practical guidance. So we'll review why we're making uh these changes, walk through what is changing and the key dates and talk with you about how you can prepare. We also know that many of you have used OSF projects in ways that have become deeply embedded in your research and and in some cases in your teaching as well. We recognize that this transition will require many of you to rethink um really established workflows and we want to make sure that you have the information and the support that you need to do that. So the plan for today is we'll take the first 5 to 10 minutes to hear from Brian Nosk, COS's executive director about why we're making this change and where we see OSF and and broader open science infrastructure heading. We'll then hear from Nikki Feifer, COS's chief product officer, about uh more the practical side of of the transition. Um certainly a little bit about the product vision but also you know what is changing those milestone dates and what those changes mean uh for you and what you can do to prepare. From there we'll move into a Q&A session with several COS team members as panelists and I'll make uh the introductions when we get to that uh part of the session. So that's the plan. Just some general housekeeping and a little bit of expectation setting now before we get officially underway. First, uh we will be monitoring the chat. So, please do feel free to drop in questions there. We'll have Brian and Nikki speak first and then move into Q&A rather than pausing after Brian's part. But as questions come up, please feel free to drop them in in that chat and uh everyone will have visibility into that as well in case uh folks have the same question. Um we have some team members in addition to our panelists available to respond to some of the questions in writing as as we go and again you all should be able to follow along with that live chat. We'll be looking to address generally kind of the broader questions that uh might be beneficial for many in the group rather than addressing individual project questions. Um but if there's a particular use case that seems like it would be valuable to speak to, we'll certainly um take that in as it as it comes. Um, given that we have just under an hour together, we may not have time to respond to every question today, but we are committed to responding to those that we don't get to. And so, we will make those responses uh available within the week along with the slides and the recording. So, um, I think that's all that I wanted to cover at the outset. And with that, let me turn it over to Brian. Thanks [clears throat] Lisa. Uh good morning, good afternoon, good evening. Uh thanks for taking time to join us. Uh I want to give some context on why we are making these changes and essentially I will summarize a um a post uh that we put on the COS uh website uh that someone will put in the chat. So I recommend you read that in full uh but I want to give some uh in words uh context uh for that. The open science framework uh started as a dissertation project in my lab. Jeff Spees uh was the lead uh of that work and in uh 2013 uh we started uh the center for open science as a charity uh to uh develop and maintain the OSF along with the other activities uh of the organization. Uh and at that time, you know, a lot of the principles and practices of open science were still becoming something that people were getting aware of and just starting to experiment with. And so we uh designed the OSF with experimentation in mind recognizing uh that we don't know how to do open practices well uh and researchers need flexibility and opportunity uh to try a variety of different approaches to see how it is that they could do uh open science for their kind of work uh as effectively as possible. And that was very effective in getting uh the community engaged, involved, informing us uh in terms of how we might improve and adapt OSF for different use cases. And over time it added a lot of complexity uh to OSF as an infrastructure. It became a registry uh for research contents. It became a repository uh for data, materials and code. It became a private uh environment for storage. uh and it became a project management uh service for managing among collaborators uh as they went through the research life cycle and the consequence uh of that flexibility is a lot of accumulating technical debt and costs for just managing it as a service. Our forecasts for the next several years if we maintained how we are doing OSF today is that it would cost us about four to5 million annually uh to maintain the functions well and do them well uh across the OSF and our sustainability strategy for that is in part uh having a subscription model of institutions each contributing about $5,000 US per year uh to help to sustain uh that infrastructure as public infrastructure that's free uh for everyone to use. But to get to that level uh of contribution of the overall costs, we would need several hundred uh universities to sign on to that. And we have several dozen uh that have done so. So the gap between the funds that we have uh coming in from institutions to maintain that infrastructure and the costs of actually doing the infrastructure well has to be filled by grants. And I doubt that it will be surprise uh to many that the grant environment particularly in the United States over the last few years has been difficult uh for uh both private uh and federal funding. uh and so with the experience of seeing that we are having more struggles obtaining uh grants to address that gap and forecasting what's coming in the future, we recognize that we are in a financial reality where it's too much risk uh to maintain the scale of infrastructure uh as we currently operate it. And our top priority across the organization is that we need to maintain the data and code and m research materials that researchers have already shared uh publicly on the OSF. And so with that as our top priority, we recognize we need to find ways to reduce our ongoing costs so that we can ensure uh that researchers can have confidence uh in the work that they have already done uh and shared on OSF. So when we were uh considering the various options that we could proactively uh try to move to ensure uh longerterm sustainability, we looked at the landscape of what has matured since 2012 when we first opened uh the OSF to the present uh and where is it that we could play a effective complimentary role to the other types of open science infrastructures that have emerged and the place where there is the most match maturation over time is in the repository landscape. There are several generalist repositories and hundreds uh of domain specific repositories for data materials and code sharing. And so given that we are redundant uh with that and looking at the various activities and things that we provide that was the most obvious area for us to uh constrain uh and shift uh how it is we operate uh OSF uh moving forward. uh and that has as a consequence some of the uh features that are unique in OSF of managing projects and data and uh all of the activities as the work happens uh also get curtailed as a way of reducing the overall scope uh of the infrastructure. And then what that leans into is recognizing that the things that we can offer some unique value in and maintain moving forward are the registration process. Uh so that research planning pre-registration identifying what it is the work that's going to be done the variety of templates that many uh of you may use in your registration. That's a real uh uh part of our process that we will maintain and continue to invest in. And likewise sharing papers uh at the at the uh end of the research process that especially as they complement uh what those research plans. And then we want to do more uh in helping to link all of the data and materials and code wherever they're shared uh in the research system so that all of these things are connected together. uh offering a full picture uh of the research life cycle. So we are deeply regretful that this is causing short-term pain. I'm very sorry for the inconvenience, the hassles of having to adapt uh to the shifting infrastructure. Uh I I don't envy it for any anyone. Uh and I we're very hopeful uh and even optimistic that that short-term challenge of reducing what it is OSF does for us will have some long-term benefits uh in making the open science infrastructure system more resilient and more effective. We will have a smaller scope, but we'll be able to invest our resources more effectively in making that easy to use uh more capable uh for the things that it does and does them well. uh rather than having a very complex service that's not that easy to use because we can't put the right investment in any of the components. And we'll work with our our partners who operate different types of infrastructure to connect those things more effectively uh over time so that it's easier for you as a user uh to navigate the variety of tools and services that make sense for the kind of work that you do so that you can do open science and do it well. So that's a brief summary uh of why it is we've made these changes. I'll be happy in the Q&A to address uh any detailed questions that you have on that, but I'll now hand it over to Nikki to dig into what the actual changes are and how to think about this moving forward. So, Nikki, >> thanks Brian. Um I I really appreciate everyone that's joined us today. Uh as others have said, my name is Nikki Feifer, chief product officer here. So, I just want to recap a few of the things that Brian covered as far as the strategic rationale for the OSF transition. Um, we do take uh the responsibility very seriously that we need to continue to uh sustainably operate um and maintain uh OSF for the long term. Uh we also want to ensure that we focus our energy and concentrate OSF where it can provide that distinct value. Um, as Brian just really eloquently described, how um, since OSF launched in 2012, there are many community uh, adopted complimentary services that have emerged and matured where we have some overlap. And so this is a real opportunity to focus where we can provide um, specific value um, in some of the workflows OSF offers now and then um, you know, promote and connect with other tools out there that are doing some of those redundant workflows. And again I think connecting um research across um different specialized systems has just become an increasing priority and something that um you know uh decentralized PID um sort of knowledge graph has enabled us to do. And so that is something we will be focused more on as as OSF continues down this path. And then finally, I I agree uh with what both what uh Brian and Lisa have reiterated that we recognize that these changes do affect researchers um and their workflows. And so we are very committed to supporting that transition and providing useful guidance and our ongoing support for everyone that has questions or um specific uh needs that we can help with. So, as we lean into focusing OSF more, we just want to recognize that it's grown into this very broad project-based workspace and and to focus it, we'll want to continue the same goal that we've had, which is to help researchers plan and document their plans, connect um their outputs and outcomes, and share their research across the the life cycle. um other community adopted repositories and tools are providing some of these uh workflows and we want to ensure that we promote those and connect um where it makes sense and to ensure that we're not competing for these limited resources. Um again this allows OSF to focus on where it can provide distinctive value and narrow that scope. So, the focus areas um for OSF will continue to be study planning and pre-registration um where we're helping researchers plan and document their studies um and more clearly from the beginning and connect um and support community preprint services as we've been doing, but we'll continue to to offer that uh workflow and to help build those connections from the preprint uh to the other outputs um and plans. And then lastly that um those connected outputs will will be something that as as we transition will will start to happen on other platforms where they used to be in OSF. So the data materials code papers all of those things um are occurring in other tools and we recognize that and so one of the things we have offered and will continue to refine and mature is different ways for researchers to connect add-on integrations to their project spaces. We'll be advancing that onto registrations. We'll be thinking about those uh additional tools and partnering with with all of those complimentary services to build birectional linkages across systems to help researchers not necessarily take on new burdens, but to actually streamline the systems and processes that they already are using. So with this more focused OSF in mind, I want to talk now more specifically about the changes to the OSF project workflow. So again, recognize this is a significant change to you and um understandably you're going to have questions about what this means for your for your workflows and we're going to take some time to walk through the changes at a high level and then dig into them in a bit more detail prioritizing some use cases that we got in the um the form where people were submitting some questions and then we'll certainly turn to the the Q&A to address additional ones. Um, so just to recap what the OSF project changes will be on November 16th, creation of new projects and components will be disabled, but existing projects um will remain editable from that point on as they do now. And then on November 19th of next year, 2027, sorry, February 19th, I think I said November, um projects will transition to a readonly state. So this is for both public and private projects. um public projects will still be uh able to be deleted after that point in time and private can also um be deleted or made public after that point in time. So let me talk about what's not changing just to reiterate a few of the things that I'm seeing in the chat as well or the Q&A as well. Um some things will remain the same and won't experience uh change at all. So COS's uh mission and commitment to supporting researchers and providing and maintaining OSF as an infrastructure that enables them to conduct their research openly and transparently as as it as it was when it started. That's that's a continued commitment and isn't going to change. All existing public content will remain accessible, discoverable, and citable as it is now. all of the OSF search interfaces and landing pages where people go now to access projects and their content, including the institutional dashboards um where those are are aggregated will all continue to work as they do now and registrations and preprints are not affected uh by this transition. So now I want to talk about what this means for public projects exclusively. Um so first any new public projects and components u will need to be created before that November 16th date um and you will be able to continue to update them after this date um until they're transitioned into the um readonly state in February. Um Teresa, do you mind skipping to the next slide? I'm digging in on um actually two slides. uh digging in on public projects. Um you will uh let's see. So when public projects become readon on February 19th, you'll be able to continue to maintain that um COS will continue to maintain that public content and you'll be able to still delete them if you need to. All of the links um to those projects will persist, including all of your URLs to different project pages that you may have um cited or shared, as well as the DOIs um that you may have also cited and shared. Um one of the key questions just to help people start to prepare is whether you plan to continue to actively update or collaborate on the project um space. And if so, uh there's some more information we'll start talking about in a minute about what you should do if that is the case. But you definitely should take the time during this transition period to determine what the activi ongoing activity uh looks like for that project and we can help guide you from there um based on on what you'll what your needs will be. So, if the project is going to be completed um by that February 19th date or is already and it mostly um functions as a record of your research, we recommend that you don't move that somewhere else and let COS continue to maintain it. Um and there wouldn't be any action needed on your part to continue to make it available and accessible and findable and discoverable and all of those good things. But if you do determine that you need to move your project content to another repository because you want to continue to actively update and um version that work um we'll want to work with uh you on that to ensure that the DOIs and other links are updated and aren't and therefore we don't duplicate records of your research in different places and that will cause some confusion in your citations and access. So, we want to be sure that we are aware of that and help guide you through um making those changes and what updates we need to do on our end for those um redirects. Um I want to jump to the next slide and just talk a little bit more about those links and different connections. Um so again, public project URLs and and DOIs will remain available. You may have used view only links for your projects and I want to just reiterate that those will continue to function as they do now as well and you'll still be able to um create new ones after the project moves into a readonly state. Um public content will continue to remain um discoverable through the search interface and other um indexing services that may be picking up projects um public projects. I also want to reiterate that files aren't going to be moved. We're not going to change the location that you have stored them. They'll remain exactly as they are now in the readonly state. You may have also connected add-ons um to your public projects and those will continue to be maintained um as they are now. Um, and those resources that you've connected through the project will still be accessible through the project, but after February 19th, you won't be able to add new connections to different locations um, uh, in add-ons uh, that you currently can up until that date. Um, so just to reiterate um, what changes there. Um, and uh, I think a common use case is that you've cited this work in your project. Um, and so as we transition to read only, it won't impact the ability for those citations to continue to work and people to be able to follow those links and access the project. Um, and if you are going to need to, again, uh, after you review your project and how you've been affected, if you do need to move that work elsewhere, we want to work with you on ensuring those redirects, um, are in place so that people who have the original URL or DOI that points to the OSF page will be redirected to the new space that you've moved your content to. Now I want to talk about private projects and add-ons a little in a little bit more depth. Um so private projects um are um going to also transition to a readonly state and existing users will be able to continue to access those um but you won't be able to add new folks to be able to access uh those project spaces after they move to the readonly state. They can also still be deleted after they move to a readonly state or they could be made public at that time. Um the storage add-ons as I mentioned um previously will continue to remain in place. So existing connections that you have will will be available through the project. Um but you won't be able to add new connections um once the project enters the readonly state. um private projects and add-ons are one of the more resource intensive um pieces of OSF for us to maintain and so we are going to take a closer look at that um towards the end of this year and early next year and evaluate the ongoing maintenance um and user needs. So that is part of the work we're we're committed to doing to ensure that um we evaluate that and support a smooth transition there. Um we have not made a decision yet as to whether we'll um you know make big changes there. Um but we do anticipate uh down the road um removing private uh storage uh for projects. Um but we will make sure to give ample notice of those changes and support you in that transition. So I want to talk about um how to prepare now that uh we've walked through these changes. Um, so again, we recognize this is a significant change to your workflows um that many of you have used OSF projects um and deeply embedded them into the research uh workflow that you have. And so we've put together some guidance um for how you can prepare and I want to walk through what we've what we've got at a high level and as I said there's I'm sure more details um that you'll have questions about and we'll try to address as much of that as we can with the time we have and we'll make sure to send out send out responses to the other questions following. So the first question um for how to prepare really depends on how you're using your OSF project. So if the project space is supporting an active uh project and that you'll need to continue to work on it and make updates uh or revisions, I think now's the time to think about what your needs will be in the future and to consider um moving that content to another home. But if your public project is essentially um completed and um it serves as a as a record of what you've done um you don't need to necessarily do anything and that we actually would recommend that you leave it on OSF and let us continue to um manage that content uh by making it you know still discoverable and accessible and citable um through those readonly um project records. If you do need to move your files or materials, we have put together some guidance for downloading your content. Um, so I can certainly share those links in the chat if others haven't. Um and if you um if your project has a DOI or a URL um again we want to work with you to ensure that we redirect those um appropriately in both the metadata records but um you know just as persistent um URLs that people may follow through through the citations. Um okay so I want to just I popped up four different um use cases that I anticipated um would be questions folks may have. So I thought I'd just talk through these for a few minutes um and then um share out some resources with you all. So one question may be um ensuring that you're meeting your funer and institutional requirements related to IRBs or data management um plans or data management and sharing plans. And so the first thing we want to do is recommend you talk with your institutional librarian. I think that they can help guide you on what's best um and to help you update your data management plan, which is intended to be a living document. So, that uh is something if you haven't done before, um which we're all kind of new to, I think they're um they may be able to give uh some really good guidance on that. They also may be able to direct you to some different um tools and repositories um that they are um either you have access to through their institutional um you know accounts or um others that are available to to everyone um that may be good homes for those resources that you're that you're um looking to ensure are updated in your in your plans. Um, we also want you to make sure you coordinate with those collaborators, uh, so that you're each not finding new new places for for content. Um, because then we'll have duplication in records. And so I think it's important that you check with your collaborators and your institution about those next steps. um for where to store your data, materials, code, and other resources. Um we again would recommend you talk to your institutional librarian or your department because they may have other supported tools that you could use. Um but we've also put together a guide that has some options listed for you to consider. I just want to say it's not an exhaustive list, um but it does give some good generalist options. And we're also um available if there are questions um to to address uh if you have questions to reach out to our support team. Um also again use cases are usually uh centered around those links and citations of that content. And so I just want to re reiterate that those uh URLs and DOIs will remain available um as well as those view only links that you may have used. Um, so just to ensure that you know that and um that you can um create new ones uh for the view only links after they move into a readonly state. Um and that we're uh also partnered with internet archive. We have been for some time uh to host preservation copies of OSF registrations and we're going to be working to extend that for projects and preprints as part of this transition work. So we'll be sharing more about that. um later this year or early next year. But that is also a piece of um ensuring that the content remains accessible. Um one more use case I'll just mention is that um OSF has supported uh the ability to use it the project space for teaching about open scholarship in different courses or workshops. and we just want to continue to encourage that um and have put some guidance together to help you transition and consider some other tools depending on how you've structured that. So, we can drop the link to that as well. Um and again, I realize I may not have addressed all of the use cases here um for OSF projects um uh but wanted to give a high level of a few that we definitely see as um something that many of you will be experiencing and needing to think through. And this is some some some uh resources and guidance that we've put together that we hope will help. So I'll just um kind of put a slide up that has those resources available to support you. So just to kind of reiterate what we've been sharing, there's um for understanding kind of what's changing and why, there is a great resource there that's just an overview of the changes. Uh, so I would definitely start there if you're looking to share this or to um re review what we what we've been talking about today. And as you start to think through specifically your OSF projects and how you're affected, I would uh start with that uh transition guides. And there's a there's a great intro on our support center that has links then um based on sort of that highle uh question about whether you this is ongoing work or mostly you know a a record of something that's completed and from there it'll help guide you through um what you can do um and and different um considerations that you'll want to think about. There may be um specific uh questions you have and so we've put together an FAQ where we've gotten questions uh during this process through our support desk and just our ongoing conversations with researchers and and different members we have. So we wanted to make sure that you knew about that as well because there may be answers to your questions uh found there. And then um I just want to reiterate that we'll continue to update these resources as well based on what we're hearing. And so um encourage you to reach out to our support team if you do have questions. Um and we'll make sure that that gets then distributed back out by um updating our our guides and things. Um and then lastly, um I know this is a lot to absorb and that you're going to need time to work through this uh transition and so we're here to support you. Please reach out if you have questions and our support team is available to help uh if you need. Um I'll just reiterate on this last slide that um some of the things we talked about at the beginning for why we're making this change for OSF and it's the ability to really focus uh OSF on um as a public its infrastructure that it's it remains you know a tool for helping researchers make their work more open transparent and connected as the landscape has shifted that means focusing on uh support for um perspective study planning is is is a priority. Um we want to continue to uh improve the registration workflow, the guidance we offer, the templates available, um expand uh on our standards and the user experience as part of our ability to focus there. We also want to support connecting all of these pieces across the life cycle together. Um and so we'll be working closely with some of these complimentary tools uh to build those partnerships. um and integrate more of a birectional linking and into the workflow uh that hopefully is seamless and not something that researchers feel as an additional burden. Um and we'll also be working uh to connect what was found back to what was originally planned. Um and so that's something we're going to continue to support our efforts to develop more of a structured uh reporting of outcomes as part of the study planning workflow. So that's something to look forward to. um and we'll be engaging more about as we continue that work. Um and we'll continue to prioritize uh fairness. So uh that is um an important part of what OSF has been focused on with research records and providing those workflows to discover and understand by making the researcher research easier to find, evaluate, understand and reuse. Um, so while this uh transition uh changes some parts uh of OSF, it ultimately is about creating a more focused and connected OSF that can continue to support researchers over the long term. I'm going to pass it over to you Lisa um to now start to facilitate some of those questions. >> Great. Thank you. Thanks, Nikki. Um I think that gives us the context and a lot of practical information we need to move into the Q&A. So, um, prior to today, we had a number of questions, uh, that were submitted in advance, and we've also we've been, um, thank you team, uh, for answering some of the questions that have been coming in in the Q&A, but, we'll we'll also kind of upvote them here so that we make it clear that everyone gets the benefit of us walking through them. Um, but we'll start with the questions that were submitted in advance and then we'll turn back to the questions coming in live. As I mentioned at the beginning, we may not be able to get to every question in the time that we have today. So, we'll capture the questions we don't address um directly and provide written responses within the next week along with um I know folks were asking for the slides and um also the recording. So, um that will all be available to you. So um let me joining joining me for this conversation are Brian and Nikki again whom you just heard from as well as Miam Zaring Halam our senior director of policy and Tim Arrington our chief research officer. Um so I'd like to start with some of the questions we think are particularly important um for everyone as you think about both the immediate transition and and the longer term future of uh OSF. So we touched on this a little bit but want to start with something I expect is or remains kind of top of mind for many people which is what happens to the research that is already on the OSF. What is COS doing to ensure that existing public OSF content remains accessible over the long term and how does this transition really strengthen the sustainability of OSF? So, I'm going to ask Nikki to to uh respond to that first part of the question and then I might jump in on the the second part. >> Sure. Thanks, Lisa. Um I mean again we recognize that the public content on OSF is a significant part of the scholarly record and we're committed to preserving that access and to that content as part of our transition. Um it again the readonly state is something that will uh ensure that we can maintain those links. um and we want to work with you again if if something is cited but you do want to continue that work elsewhere that we can then redirect uh folks to maintain sort of that scholarly record and access over the long term. And as I said before, but I'll just reiterate um we're also partnered with Internet Archive already for hosting preservation copies of the registrations. And so that will continue to be part of the transition work that we're doing. And so um these projects as well as preprints will also be backed up on internet archive. >> Great. Thank you. And just on that second part of the question which was how does this transition strengthen the sustainability of the OSF? Um, I think both Brian and Nikki have really walked through both the vision and and the approach for resilience and sustainability, but I just want to kind of synthesize that and and say that our approach is really um it's four four elements. So um we do we are intending with this to have a focused OSF with a lower recurring costs and we want to narrow the scope of of OSF um so that we can concentrate resources on on the things that um really support the mission and then also complement the existing tools um and things that will continue to develop across the system. Um, as Nikki mentioned and and both both Brian and Nikki, it's really also about interoperability and shared infrastructure. So, a strong research infrastructure system doesn't require one organization to provide every function. So, we are are really moving forward on complimentary services that can work together. But that also this in some senses this um many senses this decision is aiming to support the broader system. It's not only about COS and and the OSF sustainability, but it's trying to to get all of our collective dollars and resources to go farther and to work together better. Um, we also, Brian mentioned this at the start, but our approach in terms of funding is has been a diversified portfolio. Currently, that still is pretty heavily anchored on grants and private foundation funding, but we will continue to build a diversified support model for um the OSF and and certainly for the organization. So um that will include pursuing earned revenue for appropriate kind of value added services while continuing to seek government institutional and philanthropic support. So that isn't necessarily um changing directionally, but that is still our our our challenge in front of us as we stand up public goods infrastructure. And then as Nikki mentioned the long-term continuity and stewardship. So I won't repeat what she offered, but as part of resilience and sustainability, we're we are thinking about and always thinking about continuity and stewardship. And so you all need the confidence that work that you share on the OSF will remain uh available and connected over the long term. And so we're committed to that continuity. And we regularly analyze what are the best approaches um to strengthen that continuity over time. So, um, that's all I'll I'll say about that because I want to move to some more questions. Um, another question that came in and I think again we covered it a little bit, but I think it it's worth repeating um or or adding a little bit of color to is really the future role of OSF. So, we've talked about narrowing OSF scope, but that naturally raises a bigger question. What is what is OSF becoming? And so the question that came forth is what will OSF's role be after projects are phased out? And specifically, what is the benefit to researchers of moving from kind of the current state of OSF's all-in-one model towards a more distributed open research infrastructure? And um for researchers who primarily use projects, what value will OSF continue to provide? So, I'll um open it up maybe uh Nikki if you you don't mind taking that one. >> Sure. Happy to. Um and and maybe tag team with others as well. But uh I guess I'll just start with um thinking about the distributed ecosystem um as something that does have value um where each service can do what it's best at um and we don't duplicate each other's efforts. And then we uh do something that um should be mostly invisible to researchers which is connect uh across those systems uh about those different research activities so that there does create this life cycle uh of the research that's you know traceable it's transparent it's verifiable uh those are all the ultimate goals that we're headed towards and so this is one step towards uh sort of creating that environment and and playing what we see as the OSF's role. there. Um, and I also just want to say, you know, I agree that the all-in-one sort of solution uh with an OSF project does sort of sound simpler. Um, but then it means that one organization has to continue to maintain and sustain all of that complexity. Um, which is which is a challenge. Uh, so this more distributed model I think is less fragile from that perspective. Um, and then it allows that specialization across the the ecosystem with specific tools, being able to invest more deeply into those unique capabilities, uh, as long as we continue to iterate and work towards maturing those connections across. Um, I guess maybe that's what I'll say there and see if anyone else has something else to add um, about that. >> Okay, thanks Nikki. All right, let's keep moving. This came up, Nikki um called this out as a use case, but it's an important one. So, I'm going to just draw it out one more time, which is um and I'm going to maybe start with you, Tim. Uh so, practical question. Uh certainly we've heard is about situations where OSF projects are already part of um someone's formal documentation. So what should researchers do if OSF projects are named in an IRB or ethics approval, data management plan, grant or other institutional or funer documentation. >> Thanks. Um yeah, and this is a a challenging question because there's not an easy direct answer and and in the sense that there's just one thing you have to do. The first thing is to remind the dates. So this is what I'll provide as reference is really only if it impacts given the timeline. Much of our research much of your research takes a many years. So for those that are cutting through the timelines that you're aware of the advice is going to be what I actually has been given a lot I think in the answers is you're going to have to go to your institutions to your funders your ethics boards. You're going to have to ask them for support on what to do. So let's use the ethics IRB as a good example here. I think the uh thing to do is to quickly consult them um for something that's active. Uh they'll you'll probably get one of two extremes. One where they'll recognize that participants really care more about the action of what's happening, the sharing of the data, less about the service, and they might be able to quickly let you navigate that change following their protocol. Whether you have to reconsent or update things, that's going to be their decision of what to do and they'll guide you on that. Others might be more rigid. Um they might need more documentation. um especially since the service is being discontinued. Data sharing in this case. So I'd say if that happens, so there's two things to consider before I turn over to others. One um let us know if there is something that you need. If you need a letter proving, you know, showing that yes, we've discontinued the service on this timeline and that's why you're moving to a different one. We can offer that to you. The other one is just like the rest of these resources that's been shared and there's a lot there I know which is find a suitable solution. Uh the gray as just an example of one, the NH gray initiative. there's other repositories out there that can meet your needs. Um, so you're going to have to find those. Hopefully, we've provided you documentation. Um, and that'll be your other solution. That's just the same with the rest of these. That's the true with your funer. Um, but again, our recommendation is because it's local context, go immediately to them and, uh, seek their guidance. Let us know how we can support you. >> Great. Thanks, Tim. Anyone else? I think that was was pretty thorough. Um, but as Tim mentioned, please reach out if you've got a specific case um that you need some support on. Okay. Um, just, you know, this was also a question sent in advance. Um, and I'm going to direct it to you, Brian. One of the principles behind open science is that better research practices should ultimately improve research, not simply create another layer of work for researchers. And so how does COS um ensure that efforts to improve research practices actually reduce barriers and improve research rather than adding complexity? >> Uh that's a great question. Um in the broad sense the entire orientation uh that we have about promoting open science is to actually improve the quality of the science not be bureaucratic burdens for bureaucratic sake. So the person that should benefit most from open science is the person doing it. The person that should benefit second most is the person reviewing it, receiving it, absorbing uh that information. So for each of the practices that we are promoting data sharing pre-registration sharing preprints and otherwise to the extent that we can integrate those into researchers workflows so that they see the benefits for themselves right if I'm preparing my data for sharing with others but I'm preparing it while I'm doing the work then I'm documenting it for my own use when I get a revise and resubmit when my collaborators say oh can I see the data and how the code works so we can discover errors. So that's really the strong orientation that I think really makes open science part of the research process in the way that we try to say there are other things that we do like randomization that we do because we're trying to do really high quality work. Now of course there are bureaucratic burdens, there is complexity, there are things that we have to do uh to do these things. But the if we're every day looking at how is it that we can provide tooling and infrastructure and support materials that make it about doing good work, then they're much easier to adopt and embrace. The irony of course in the immediate is that we are throwing a wrench into people's lives uh with this change and that isn't going to help make things easier. But our hope in doing this and providing the materials and otherwise is that we can get through that in a short term so that in the longer term uh you can be more confident and more effective in in your work. >> Thank thank you Brian. All right. Um, one last question from the preset and then we'll turn to um, at least the open question that we haven't answered and then um, call attention to any others that have been answered as well in the remaining time that we have. Um, I'm going to direct this back to you, Nikki, and you touched on it through a little bit of kind of the decision, you know, is it active, is it complete, and then use cases, but how should researchers manage registrations and associated project materials when an embargo, journal review, or a protocol change extends beyond the project's readonly deadline? >> Yeah, that's a great question. It's a little complex to answer at a like abstract level. It probably really warrants digging in more specifically to the timelines and the resources uh that are that are being accessed. But I guess I separated into two parts. I mean the registration versus the project materials. So the registration is the timestamp record of what was planned and that uh will remain uh and should remain as the record of of sort of what the what the study is about and the plans. and then the associated project um contains these other resources that may also need to be accessed. So if it's an active study and you will need to update and edit those things um I would suggest that you look at where you could move those and then work with us to ensure that the links continue to work. Um but again I think it really depends on the timelines um and what the resources are. But the registration should be fine. um it's the other materials that depending on on what they are and the timing we'll have to um kind of help you uh think through the best path there. >> Great. Thanks Nikki. Miriam, anything to add almost kind of from a policy lens too? >> Sure. Uh the only thing that I'll add is that um registrations made using the OSF registrations or registries workflow um are those that uh will remain intact for any uh we've we're we've been sort of tracking that um some folks use the OSF projects workflow to register studies and so making sure that those are actually in the OSF registries uh make sure that they are one, um, you know, you're able to make use of these templates that have been developed, um, through review that kind of streamline and standardize, um, how, uh, registrations are made, um, and give you that capability to sort of link out to the associated outcomes and outputs and outcomes, uh, which is really what we're after with this this vision of life cycle open science. Um, so I just want to note that caveat there. Thanks. That's an important call out. Thanks, Miriam. Okay. Um we do have uh some questions that have come through but there's one open one that I want to get to at the very least which is um a great one and it's something that I think um for for all of us who are actively engaged in supporting infrastructure and and obviously um addressing uh benefits and um you know kind of challenges with technology AI in particular. This is a is a good question to ask. So it is is the funding strain on OSF primarily from the loss of federal funding, increased web activity due to generative AI scraping of OSF content or both? And um really really great question, Brian. I'm going to toss it over to you because you touched on it a little bit in the opening about kind of the context and the why. Um, and I I'll preview by saying yes, it's a it's a it's a little bit of all, right? But, um, go ahead, Brian. >> Sure. If you think about on the revenue side, uh, historically speaking, we've had in the neighborhood of half of our funding from federal sources, half from private philanthropies. Uh, and we've been less successful over the last couple of years on both counts. Um, so in, you know, we're writing lots of proposals and we're yielding uh, less of that. So our outlook uh and looking at sort of where are we headed uh we have to sort of dial down what our expectations are of continued success uh as we've been able to do uh historically. Um and on the good side of that is we we recognize that you know grant cycle goes like this in even in good times uh you can't anticipate and count on uh winning every grant or even a certain percentage of them. Um so we uh for the last six years built up cash reserves uh when we could when things were going well and we actually accumulated a solid bit of cash reserves so that if we confronted situations like the ones we face today we wouldn't have to deal with it reactively and just start shutting things down. Instead, we could start to deploy our cash reserves to maintain our operations while we try to figure out uh the funding landscape and and try to solve uh for that. Uh so we are using uh those cash reserves this year. We will use more of them next year and we're going to continue fundraising to try to uh you know keep that revenue up. The other side of that is of course the memberships of OSF institutions. we still need that as uh support and that really provides a more predictable more sustainable long-term uh for maintaining the revenue side of this. So we're hopeful that uh some of these activities and some recognition of the uh potential uh challenges for open infrastructure will motivate some of our community uh to to uh toward that investment. On the expense side, you also called out uh AI, generative models and other things of course uh are adding uh to cost and it's but it's doing so not in a singular way. It's like lots and lots of things cumitively are adding uh to the expense line. Some of it is just downloading uh of our content. You know, we average somewhere in the teens of terabytes every day of content being downloaded from OSF. Lots of that legitimate download, lots of that questionable uh downloading. Uh but that is an a burden that just continues to accumulate. But that isn't a massive cost. It is a cost. Uh and it's a it's a massive cost from my pocketbook, but not from COS forward $5 million a year. But the other costs are just the complexity of the infrastructure and maintaining it. So for example, you might have Dropbox or Box.com or uh Zotterero connected to your projects. Each one of those connections has to be maintained uh by a developer who's responsible for making sure that those uh integrations are operating well. Uh there's incredible amount of resources that goes into just basic operations and security uh of the infrastructure. there are many use cases and the complexity and the interactions of that. So the over the years we've accumulated a substantial amount of technical debt that just is an ongoing burden and so that's sort of an inescapable part of the expense side uh that really uh has an impact on our overall sustainability and part of why uh this is prompted. So thanks for that question. >> Yeah, thanks Brian. Um there was a related question to uh I think we answered it but just I'll call attention to it which was after the transition will we have to pay to register our project on the OSF and um you know we talked a little bit about you know how how we generate revenue to support but that is one of our long-term commitments is to stand up a public good that is free to users and so the answer is no. Um what we seek to do is that um institutional or organizational or philanthropic support to sustain um and again if we provided unique value added features or different things then that may be something that is a paid service but otherwise um no you would not be paying to register um your project on OSF. Um, one last question and I'm going to take uh it it's a it's a good one I think to end on because we've covered a lot of ground as Nikki said and and it's a lot to absorb but it's in simple terms is it correct to say that the entire infrastructure of OSF will be the same with the exception of functioning as a data repository and so um I'll open it up maybe I don't know Nikki or or Brian if you want to respond to that. I think it's a a good call out um just [clears throat] to to emphasize again. >> I [laughter] go ahead Nikki. >> Maybe we both have things to say on this. Um yeah, I mean I think the project space did support that use case data specifically but it supported others as well. So I I can't say yes period. It's yes, but uh it also will not um with the transition not be the place for other types of resources in the projects uh space. So Brian, I don't know what else you had on mind. >> Yeah. Uh yeah. So the to me the the loss in terms of my own workflow that's most substantial is collaborative management, right? It it is the sense of oh our team has this space. we all connect to that space and we're working as we're working through the project on the data on the code on the materials we're exchanging information and you know we used to have like a commenting feature that was intended to sort of make that a dynamic discussion environment it never really worked that way in OSF so the way that I interacted with OSF in that feature that's leaving is like our Slack channel with our OSF project right we'd be talking about it and we'd be working with those materials now it is supporting life cycle open science but a little bit more removed from that active dynamic space uh where you'll register your study you can still have that collaborative context in in the registration of the study plans then when you get to the point of linking up data materials and code you'll be able to link those things together uh with the registration and you'll be able to share uh the papers and things otherwise but that sort of that daily environment uh also goes away from it just being a repository feature. >> Yep. Thanks, Nikki and Brian. All right, we are at the end of our time. Uh, I want to thank all of you for taking the time to be here and to engage with us and also for um the excellent questions. uh for those of you who are already supporting um your fellow you know kind of colleagues and community members we've seen a lot of really goodwill in terms of providing solutions that might be discipline relevant um or other otherwise methodologically and so um you know we're very grateful to all of you as this broader community of providing that support um I want to thank Brian Nikki Miriam Tim and the whole COS team u just for for joining us as Well, again, we recognize this is a significant change. Um, particularly for those of you who have have built OSF into your research workflows a little bit as as Brian was describing, our commitment is to support you through the transition and help you continue doing your science openly. Um, so please, um, we've popped up the resources, uh, again, but we will share out, uh, even though it we actually got to all the the, um, questions in the Q&A, we'll still send out, um, the responses so that everyone has them kind of in a cohesive set. Uh, you may also want to share them with other um, community members, too, if it's helpful. And um please continue to reach out with questions as you work through what these changes mean for your particular circumstances. Uh and thank you for being part of uh the OSF community and and for the work that you do to improve science. Have a wonderful day everyone. Thank you.