How OSPREY works

Some more explanation of the features of OSPREY. 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.

The submission form has tabs for Basics, Description, Contributors, Files, More details and Lineage. Save and continue saves the draft and moves you to the next tab, and after the first save each tab shows a check when its required fields are filled or an x when they aren't. You can publish once every tab has a check; hit Publish before that and what's still missing shows in red.

Every contributor needs an ORCID iD before you can publish, and you need to have signed in with ORCID.

Other kinds of projects

There are several ways to get a project onto OSPREY.

A native OSPREY project is the standard kind. You upload the files, and OSPREY publishes them to Zenodo, mints the DOI, and looks after the Zenodo record.

A registered project is existing work that's already on Zenodo, but you want a standard OSPREY page for it too. You can give OSPREY your Zenodo DOI and the project gets an OSPREY page with most OSPREY Features: lineage, wiki, discussion, use reports and citations. More details are in Registered Zenodo Projects.

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. Listed contributors can see the draft. Their name links to their OSPREY profile only after they accept the credit from Settings, under Contributor Credits.

The Project Owner controls the contributor list and is the only person who can publish. Owners can 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. The rest is in the contributor guidelines.

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.

Markdown editor

READMEs are written in Markdown. To add an image, paste or drop it into the README, or use Insert image. Images have to be uploaded to OSPREY. Images linked from other sites aren't shown. More in the Markdown tips.

Staying informed

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

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.

To hear about every new project published on OSPREY, not just ones from people you follow, set New projects in Settings, under Notifications. It can be Off, Immediate, Daily or Weekly, and starts on Weekly. Off also keeps them out of your inbox.

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.