How OSPREY works

A tour of the features that might not explain themselves. For picking a license, see the license guide. For project relationships, see the project lineage guide.

Publishing a project

A project starts as a draft. Drafts are private: only you, your contributors, and staff can see them, and you can edit or delete them freely.

Publishing is different. When you publish, OSPREY deposits a snapshot of your project with Zenodo, the CERN-operated research archive, and mints a DOI. From that point the project is a permanent part of the public research record. It can't be flipped back to a draft, and published files can't be swapped out. The metadata for the project can still be edited after publishing.

Versions

A published project doesn't have to be frozen forever. When you've made updates, publish a new version from the project page. Each version gets its own DOI and keeps its own files.

The project DOI always points at the latest version. Cite the project DOI for the work as a whole, and a version DOI when you need to point at one exact snapshot. The full history is on the project's Versions tab.

Contributor credit

Every contributor on a published project needs an ORCID iD, attached through the search on the project submission form. Listed contributors can view the project in its draft form. Their name links to their OSPREY profile only after they accept and confirm the credit, which they do from Settings, under Contributor Credits. Until then the row shows as unverified.

The Project Owner controls the contributor list and is the only person who can publish. Owners can also grant Project Editor access to accepted contributors, who can then edit everything except the contributor list. Project Owners can transfer ownership entirely to another contributor.

If you're managing a project you didn't build yourself, list the real authors and give yourself a role like "Uploaded project".

Lineage

Projects can declare what other projects they built on. Derived From for work you modified, Uses for work sitting inside yours unmodified. Links are pinned to specific versions on both ends, and the other project's team can dispute a link they believe is wrong. More details are in the project lineage guide.

Around a project

Each project page carries more than the README:

• Wiki. Living documentation. Some wikis are open to direct edits, others review suggestions first based on the project settings.
• Discussion. Questions about the project. The asker can mark a reply as the solution, and maintainers can mark their own pick.
• Use reports. First-hand accounts from people who used the project. Anyone signed in can file one. If you built someone's design, tell them how it went.
• Citations. Works that reference the project. Maintainers can add them directly, and use reports can add them too.

Staying informed

You can follow a person to hear when they publish, and follow a project to hear about new versions, wiki pages, and use reports. Everything lands in your inbox, the bell in the header.

Email is optional. Add an address in Settings and you get a daily summary by default, with weekly and immediate options per category. Disabling email removes your email address from the system entirely.

Getting help

The Suggestion Box (bottom corner of every page) goes straight to staff: ideas, bug reports, anything. Replies land on your Staff Messages page and in your inbox. Requests about your personal data have their own form, linked from the Privacy Policy.