Registrations are a frozen time-stamped copy of your OSF project. Registrations which are created via OSF may be embargoed (up to 4 years) or made public. Public registrations may be assigned a doi. Once registrations are approved by all project administrators, the registration may not be edited or deleted. However, they may be withdrawn.
Registrations archive and preserve both OSF Storage and add-ons connected to projects. Registrations must be 5GB or less across all storage being registered. Arrangements may be made with OSF if storage greater than 5GB is needed for a registration.
OSF maintains a wiki of types of preregistrations that are available on the OSF site and those which are not supported. https://osf.io/zab38/wiki/home/.
Here is a list of registrations which are currently available:
OSF Preregistration: This is the standard preregistration form on OSF. You will be asked a series of questions to ensure that your sampling, design, and analysis plans are solidified prior to beginning your study.
Open-Ended Registration: You will be asked to provide a narrative summary of what is contained in your project. There is no minimum character length.
Registered Report Protocol Preregistration: This form is intended for those who have received an "in-principle acceptance" for a registered report from a journal (see https://cos.io/rr). You will be asked to provide your accepted protocol manuscript, the journal name, and the date of in-principle acceptance.
Preregistration Template from AsPredicted.org: This form is a straightforward preregistration form in which you will be asked eight questions based on procedures from AsPredicted.org.
OSF-Standard Pre-Data Collection Registration: You will be asked if data collection is underway and if you have looked at your data already. You will be provided an opportunity to post other comments about your project.
Replication Recipe (Brandt et al., 2013): Preregistration: This form is intended for use when conducting a replication. You will be asked a series of questions about the study you intend to replicate.
Replication Recipe (Brandt et al., 2013): Post-Completion: This form is intended for use upon completion of a replication study, as outlined by Brandt et al., "The Replication Recipe: What Makes for a Convincing Replication?" You will be asked to answer a series of questions about the outcomes of your replication and how they compare to the original study.
Preregistration in Social Psychology (van't Veer & Giner-Sorolla, 2016): Preregistration: This form is intended for use when conducting a preregistration. You will be asked to fill out the elements for a preregistration as described in their article .
What are Registered Reports?
Registered Reports is a publishing format used by a growing number of journals that emphasizes the importance of the research question and the quality of methodology by conducting peer review prior to data collection. High quality protocols are then provisionally accepted for publication if the authors follow through with the registered methodology.
This format is designed to reward best practices in adhering to the hypothetico-deductive model of the scientific method. It eliminates a variety of questionable research practices, including low statistical power, selective reporting of results, and publication bias, while allowing complete flexibility to report serendipitous findings.
The following is a flow chart of the scholarly publication process when registered reports are enacted.
OSF supports the Registered Reports publishing format either as a regular submission option or as part of a single special issue for 264 journals.
For an article type to qualify as a registered report, the journal policy must include at least these features:
See also this table that compares the specific features of Registered Reports at different outlets or a summary of each journal here.
In order to be eligible to use the Research Reports form, you need to first have received "in principle acceptance" (IPA) from a journal after Stage 1 Peer Review, and before you have begun your study.
If you are considering a Registered Reports submission but not sure how to get started, a good way to begin is to (a) read the specific author guidelines included for the participating journal, (b) complete the template protocol and then (c) expand the template protocol into a full Stage 1 manuscript.