Center for Open Science


The Center for Open Science is a non-profit technology organization based in Charlottesville, Virginia with a mission to "increase the openness, integrity, and reproducibility of scientific research." Brian Nosek and Jeffrey Spies founded the organization in January 2013, funded mainly by the Laura and John Arnold Foundation and others, after implementation and use of the Open Science Framework.
The organization began with work in reproducibility of psychology research, with the large-scale "". A second reproducibility project for cancer biology research has also been started through a partnership with Science Exchange. In March 2017, the Center published a detailed strategic plan. Brian Nosek posted a letter outlining the history of the Center and future directions.

Open Science Framework

The Open Science Framework is an open source software project that facilitates open collaboration in science research. This framework was used to work on a project in the reproducibility of psychology research. The current reproducibility project is a crowdsourced empirical investigation of the reproducibility of a variety of studies from psychological literature. The reproducibility project samples from three major journals: Journal of Personality and Social Psychology, Psychological Science, and . Scientists from all over the world volunteer to replicate a study of their choosing from these journals, and follow a structured protocol for designing and conducting a high-powered replication of the key effect. The results were published in 2015. Whilst OSF initially focused on psychology, it has since broadened into any research field.
In 2016 the group released three new open source preprint services covering the fields of engineering, engrXiv, one that covers social sciences, SocArXiv, and one for psychology, PsyArXiv. Currently partner repositories include: AfricArXiv, AgriXiv, arabixiv, BodoArXiv, EarthArXiv, EcoEvoRxiv, ECSarXiv, engrXiv, EdArXiv, FocUS Archive, FrenXiv, INA-Rxiv, IndiaRxiv, LawArXiv, LIS Scholarship Archive, MarXiv, MediArXiv, MetaArXiv, MindRxiv, NutriXiv, Paleorxiv, PsyArXiv, SocArxiv, SportRxiv, and Thesis Commons.