Open Science Framework

Create a project and provide the outputs in an open access repository

OSF is a Trusted Repository

The Open Science Foundation is a product of the Center for Open Science and is a trusted repository providing preservation of your research output.

COS established a $250,000 preservation fund for hosted data in the event that COS had to curtail or close its offices. If activated, the preservation fund will preserve and maintain read access to hosted data. This fund is sufficient for 50+ years of read access hosting at present costs. COS will incorporate growth of the preservation fund as part of its funding model as data storage scales. For information about OSF backups and technical preservation details, see the OSF Backup and Preservation Policy.

OSF Storage

Where does OSF store my data?

The United States is the default storage location for OSF Storage. You can set a global storage location for newly created projects going forward; different locations can be set on a per-project basis upon creation. Setting a global storage location is not retroactive: All existing projects will continue to be stored in the United States. As of now, the storage locations available are:

  • United States
  • Canada - Montréal
  • Germany - Frankfurt
  • Australia - Sydney

Files connected to third-party storage add-ons are not stored or backed up on OSF; please refer to the provider's server locations for information on where this content is stored.

Caps on Data Size

Individual files must be 5GB or less to be uploaded to OSF Storage. Larger files can be stored in an add-on.

OSF limits the capacity of private projects and components utilizing OSF Storage to 5 GB and public projects and components to 50 GB. Each project is created with a default OSF Storage enabled.

OSF Storage Details

Deposited, files in OSF are stored in multiple locations and on multiple media types. OSF keeps three types of hashes (MD5, SHA-1, SHA-256) for files.and parity archive files to recover from up to 5% bit error. OSFuses Google Cloud for active storage and Amazon Glacier as a backup location. Please refer to Google Cloud and Glacier documentation for details about the robustness features they provide.

The OSF database is backed up via streaming replication 24 hours a day, and incremental restore points are made twice daily. Further, the OSF database is maintained in encrypted snapshots for an additional 60 days. Database backups are verified monthly.

Operational data (e.g., config files) for other OSF services are backed up in primary cloud file storage for 60 days.

Logs are primarily stored in Google Cloud cold storage indefinitely. In certain cases a third party aggregation service is used for up to 90 days, then backed up to Amazon S3 indefinitely.

Storage add-ons that work with OSF

Connecting an add-on provides an uninterrupted workflow experience across the entire research lifecycle while giving you and your collaborators a way to manage, access, and share all of your data from one place.


OSF proves a add-in feature chart  to help you choose the appropriate add-in storage. Potential add ins include:

Amazon S3

Box

Dropbox

Github

Google Drive

ownCloud

OneDrive

GitLab

Bitbucket

Dataverse

Figshare

The University does have licenses for GitLab and Box. There may, however, be limits to file and project storage sizes. More information may be found in the Communication and Collaboration page from IT Services