In the era of modern research and digital scholarship, it is becoming increasingly important to diversify not only the scope of your scholarship but also the modes of its storage, preservation, and sharing. Digital platforms are enabling researchers to protect and preserve their work and to reach wider audiences than traditional methods of publication and academic presentation. Furthermore, funding agencies are placing more and more emphasis on the openness, sharing, and reproducibility of data and research workflows to secure their support.
Notably, the White House Office of Science and Technology Policy released a memo in 2022 requiring all federal funding agencies to ensure that publications and their supporting data that results from federally funded research be made publicly accessible immediately upon their publication, putting some onus on researchers to ensure their data and relevant materials are able to be made public.
In light of all of these issues, it has never been more important that now to ensure that research is accessible, reproducible, and discoverable in as many ways as possible. Doing so can amplify a researcher's academic profile, improve opportunities for collaboration, and bolster chances at securing research funding.
The Open Science Framework (OSF) is a free, open source platform that provides a space for project collaboration, research dissemination, and the storage, sharing, and version control of all types of data, documents, and files. As a project collaboration and research management tool, it allows researchers to upload papers, research projects, datasets, and enables the easy sharing of data and workflows amongst collaborators or students.
OSF also integrates with services you already use like Box, Drive, Github, and many more, so that all your data is accessible in one location.
With CWRU's institutional OSF account, users create project pages to upload data, invite collaborators, and manage research workflows. CWRU's institutional account with OSF enables users to affiliate research, projects, and datasets with Case Western Reserve University and make them discoverable on our institutional landing page to improve researcher visibility and preserve your work for years to come.
Today's challenge is to set up your OSF profile with CWRU's institutional OSF account so that you can begin affiliating your research with CWRU and assigning DOIs to your work. If you already have an OSF account affiliated with CWRU, you can instead link it to your ORCID.
Since CWRU is a member of OSF Institutions, every researcher affiliated with our university has access to OSF through our Single Sign-On. Go to the OSF homepage and click Sign Up at the top right.
When you click sign up, choose to sign up using Institution at the top, and select Case Western Reserve University from the drop down menu.
This will automatically redirect you to CWRU's single sign on page. When you input your credentials, an OSF account will automatically be created for you using your firstname.lastname@case.edu email address.
You should automatically be logged into OSF using the SSO credentials.
If you already have an existing account (linked to a Gmail address or a different case.edu address), you can merge it with this one by navigating to your account settings and following the instructions to add the email address of your other account to this one. 
With OSF, researchers create "projects" to upload, manage, and share their data. Projects can take any form, including research papers, datasets, working files, etc., and can even be a space to manage a classroom or lab.
Every project, and every component of a project, is set to "private" by default. No files or data will be shared unless you specifically change it to be public or invite collaborators to work on the OSF project with you.
After you are signed into OSF through the CWRU SSO, click "Create New Project" button to make your first project and start uploading files.
Give the project whatever name you desire, and affiliate the project with Case Western Reserve University by clicking "Select All" in the Affiliations section of the Create New Project window. Affiliating your project with CWRU will ensure your research is discoverable on the institutional landing page at case.edu/osf. You can always affiliate projects later if you choose not to do so when creating.
If you choose to make a project (or any component of a project), public, you can assign it a DOI (Digital Object Identifier). A DOI is a persistent identifier or handle that helps to ensure you will always have a reliable URL that redirects to your files or your data.
To generate a DOI for a project (or component of a project), simply navigate to the project (or component) page in your OSF account. Set the page to public by clicking "Make Public" at the top right, and then click "Generate DOI" under the title and description of the project (or component).
OSF enables researchers to connect their account to other platforms, including ORCID, Google Scholar, Academia, ReserarchGate, and many more. Linking your OSF to these profiles greatly improves the visibility and reach of your research and enables the discovery of your academic contributions through myriad avenues of inquest.
To link your OSF account to these profiles, follow these steps:
To complete the challenge, please share your profile with us.