As the first installment of the series “How UC Researchers use the Open Science Framework”, we hear from Emily Kean, Research and Education Librarian and Liaison for Nursing who is based at the Health Sciences Library.

Research Project Description or statement about your research interest I’m incorporated on several research teams from UC Health and the College of Nursing that are conducting systematic or integrative reviews. I’m responsible for generating reproducible search strings that will eventually be published as part of the review manuscripts.

Why did you chose to use the OSF to organize your research/projects? I needed an organization tool that allowed me to track my progress over time and also share my work privately with the entire research team. I used one or two other options before settling on the Open Science Framework. OSF seems to work best for my needs. Adding collaborators is very easy and the design is so intuitive, there isn’t much of a learning curve for training new team members.

What about the OSF makes this tool a good choice for your project management (i.e. specific function of the OSF)? I love the wiki and the fact that multiple people can edit and view the same content simultaneously. Most of my process is documenting term harvesting and testing and the wiki has been the perfect way to organize my work. My research partners can see my progress in real time, and at the end, I have reproducible search strings.

Additional information about the project or using the OSF that you are willing to share: None of my projects are currently public, but one of the features of the OSF that I’m looking forward to using is sharing my sites publicly after our manuscripts are published. Typically, only one search string for a systematic review would be printed, and the OSF will allow me to share all of the progress and multiple completed strings with other interested researchers.