Tag Archives: OSF

How UC Researchers use the Open Science Framework – Theresa Culley, Head of Biological Sciences and Professor of Biology, Editor-in-Chief Applications in Plant Sciences

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Researcher Name: Theresa Culley, Head of Biological Sciences and Professor of Biology, Editor-in-Chief Applications in Plant Sciences

In our fourth installment of the series “How UC Researchers use the Open Science Framework”, we hear from  Theresa Culley, Head of Biological Sciences and Professor of Biology, Editor-in-Chief Applications in Plant Sciences

 

Theresa Culley - 2018 Head of Biological Sciences

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

Research Project Description or statement about your research interest:

My research area in Botany focuses on plant population biology and genetics and I have a deep interest in the evolution of invasive species.  I am also very interested in publication patterns regarding research involving hotspot areas of biodiversity.  My lab has been considering the question of whether researchers from developing countries, which have the most biodiversity hotspots, receive adequate credit for their work.  We are currently working on a project examining publishing bias in the scientific literature about plant conservation genetics.  This collaboration is in partnership with UC Libraries’ Digital Scholarship Center and is one of several collaborations funded by a $900,000 Andrew W. Mellon Foundation awarded to the Center.  I am also interested in this topics in my role as Editor-in-Chief for Applications in Plant Sciences.

Why did you chose to use the OSF to organize your research/projects?

I am an advocate for data sharing and reproducible research.  In an editorial I wrote for Applications in Plant Sciences, I highlighted the many reasons to ensure access to data and major considerations behind why researchers may not want to share data.  A resource like the open science framework is an excellent tool for promoting transparency and reproducibility and advancing the field at an accelerated pace.  The OSF helps to manage the entire project and especially makes it easy to share data within our research group and with collaborators.  This is a great place to manage the active parts of a project, and link all the different tools that members of a research group use .  We also have the ability to archive data and content here and look forward to a possible integration into our Institutional Repository in the future.

What about the OSF makes this tool a good choice for your project management (i.e. specific function of the OSF)?

Some of my team members prefer to use Dropbox and some are using Box.  Using the OSF makes it possible to bring all the different tools we are using under one project umbrella.  And it helps us to track activity on the project.

Additional comment for the post that you are willing to share:

Currently our project is not public, but we hope to share components in the future.

The Center for Open Science has been a great resource for our lab and the journal Applications in Plant Sciences.  In August 2016, the journal adopted the TOP guidelines, along with its sister journal, American Journal of Botany.

How UC Researchers use the Open Science Framework – Karlynn BrintzenhofeSzoc, CAHS-School of Social Work, Associate Professor

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In our third installment of the series “How UC Researchers use the Open Science Framework”, we hear from

Karlynn BrintzenhofeSzoc, CAHS-School of Social Work, Associate Professor

Karlynn Brintzenhofeszoc, CAHS-School of Social Work, Associate Professor

 

Research Project Description or statement about your research interest:

I am working with a group of trans-disciplinary researchers who focus on the current state of care for older adults with cancer.  It is well known that enrollment of older adults into cancer clinical trials is not proportional to the number of older adults who are diagnosed with and treated for cancer.  Further there is little known about how older patients who participated in clinical trials respond to treatments.  And we do not have a clear understanding of the many factors that affect their quality of life during treatment such as drug tolerance levels or best practices in coordinating their care.

Additionally, The American Society for Clinical Oncology (https://www.asco.org/) published a call to increase the recruitment of older adults into trials.  One of the main recommendations they made is that journals develop policies that would involve a better reporting system that would encourage data to be analyzed and reported by age groups on efficacy and adverse effects.  This change could improve clinical practice and likely improve the quality of life of older adults.

Our research project will take a snapshot of the literature and focus on Phase III therapeutic cancer clinical trials.  We are conducting a systematic review of the literature for the time frame of July 1 2016 to June 30 2017.  One of the data points we are gathering is inclusion and exclusion criteria which have an upper age cutoff.  Already we see in the literature that there is an inconsistency in age reporting.  Also, it is difficult to find reports where the results are stratified for older adults.  And in order to set best practices, we believe researchers need to pay more attention to older adults when reporting outcomes.

This group of researchers and clinicians are a part of the Cancer and Aging Research Group (mycarg.org) which is a national advocacy group that funds and supports research to provide better coordinated care for older adults with cancer.

Why did you chose to use the OSF to organize your research/projects?

We started off using another workflow to assign readings to reviewers and it was a disaster in record keeping.   We couldn’t figure out what articles had been assigned to reviewers, and if and when they had completed their assigned readings.

Then I discovered the Open Science Framework (through an email from the library) and switched to using the OSF.  It was very easy to transition our workflow to this system.  We could set up projects in the OSF, connect with the reviewers by inviting them to be collaborators, and share their tasks through the OSF.  We created files (or components in the OSF) for each person.  We loaded their reading assignments into the project and were able to track when they opened the files.  So we knew what was getting done and what still needed to be addressed.  It was very easy to use, especially for collaborators with virtually no training needed.  There was no angst or pain with the system.  It is also very easy to add and remove collaborators.

What about the OSF makes this tool a good choice for your project management (i.e. specific function of the OSF)?

I LOVE the notification features.  We can track that the work is being done by the reviewers assigned.  And it is easy to extract the data from a collection document in the OSF into our REDCap data management system.

Additional comment for the post that you are willing to share:

A second group of clinicians and researchers who are members of the Multinational Association of Supportive Care in Cancer (MASCC; mascc.org) are starting another project using the OSF.  A CARG clinicians, who is leading this second project that is looking at shared decision making with older adults with cancer, has also decided to use OSF for the project.

The OSF has a lot of potential.  I personally could use it more, but would want additional training to understand all the functionality of the OSF.  And I love that the platform is accessible anywhere.

Currently our project is only accessible to collaborators, but it will be easy to open components of the project if we choose or need to share some of our findings.

 

How UC Researchers use the Open Science Framework – UC Center for Police Research and Policy

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In our second installment of the series “How UC Researchers use the Open Science Framework”, we hear from Hannah McManus, Gabrielle Isaza, and Clair Green-Schwartz, Research Associates with the IACP / UC Center for Police Research and Policy 

Hannah McManus, Gabrielle Isaza, and Clair Green-Schwartz, Research Associates with the IACP / UC Center for Police Research and Policy

Research Project Description or statement about your research interest

The International Association of Chiefs of Police (IACP)/University of Cincinnati (UC) Center for Police Research and Policy engages in rigorous research that has practical implications for the field and is intended to serve as a national model for the way law enforcement agencies and researchers work together to help protect communities, safeguard citizens’ rights, and ensure the fair treatment of all individuals.

There is currently a gap between research and practice, and the IACP/UC Center for Police Research and Policy seeks to play an important role in closing that gap. Often times existing research does not provide actionable recommendations that can be easily translated into specific, practical policies and practices that could enhance policing. Moreover, academic researchers often do not have access to all the data that police departments have that is necessary to conduct rigorous and meaningful research on police practices. The goal of the IACP/UC Center for Police Research and Policy is to provide a path for law enforcement and researchers to work together on studies that can drive future practices and policies.

Why did you chose to use the OSF to organize your research/projects?

The IACP/UC Center for Police Research and Policy is funded by the Laura and John Arnold Foundation (LJAF). The LJAF is committed to funding research that meets the most rigorous standards of quality and transparency. As such, we make public our preregistration document for each project, which involves describing the research design in detail before the statistical analyses are performed. Further, we update the Center’s OSF profile as we gather more information on individual projects, and submit all applicable research materials onto the OSF for public viewing. At the end of our research projects, we include the findings either in the form of a written report or a link to a publication or preprint elsewhere. These findings must be freely available in some form, which removes the financial barriers that some may face when trying to access research. The Center’s OSF webpage thus provides a comprehensive overview of an entire research project from start to finish. And further, in the event that a research project does not lead to a peer-reviewed publication, posting the results at OSF serves a valuable informative purpose.

What about the OSF makes this tool a good choice for your project management (i.e. specific function of the OSF)?

The OSF is a useful web platform to centralize all parts of the project from initial idea to final results. It keeps a useful history of documents for us to track changes and progress over time. Ultimately, this tool is most useful in its ability to serve as a platform for transparency in research.

Please use this link for further detail about the Center for Police Research and Policy’s research projects:

https://osf.io/f2drv/

How UC Researchers use the Open Science Framework – Emily Kean

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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.

 

OSF FOR UC is here

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The Researcher Services group, an initiative of UC Libraries with the IT@UC R&D Team, is pleased to announce a new tool for research projects: OSF for UC.

There is no cost to use OSF for UC.  OSF, or the Open Science Framework, an open-source workflow tool appropriate for any discipline and developed by the Center for Open Science.

OSF for UC — osf.uc.edu — is UC’s portal for students, faculty, staff and others who need to manage project files and documents.  Sign-in is easy – go to osf.uc.edu, sign in, choose University of Cincinnati, then your UC 6+2 Central Login.

Through OSF, project teams can assign collaborators (internal and external to UC) and share project documents at a granular level (only share what you want, with whom you want).  Projects managed through the OSF are private by default.  Any or all parts of a project can be made public as desired or required by grant funders or others. 

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