“For almost a year, Open Science Indicators have offered the ability to measure three Open Science practices: data sharing, code sharing, and preprint posting. Now, PLOS and DataSeer are adding a fourth indicator for protocol sharing. As we expand the tool’s capabilities, we invite your feedback on the approach we’ve taken in this preliminary data release….
We drafted a set of requirements built on our OSI measurement framework and consulted on them with stakeholders including tool providers, meta-researchers, and other methods experts. We then worked with DataSeer to operationalize the requirements. Our current approach detects links to or citations of outputs from an allowlist of publications and repositories known to focus on protocols. In keeping with our approach to measuring data and code sharing, we also detect relevant metadata from supplementary information where available. Please consult our methods documentation for more detail….
Our roadmap for further developing the protocols indicator includes adding detection of protocols on lab websites and other online locations. We plan to look more deeply at citations of published protocols, so that we can understand the extent to which authors are pointing to procedures actually used in their study as opposed to referencing protocols for some other reason. We also want to be able to assess how often researchers share their own protocols versus protocols created by others.
Just as importantly, we’d like to hear from you: are there publications or repositories missing from our allowlist? How should we address the limitations of an allowlist-based approach? And are there other ways of communicating detailed methods information that we should consider? We’d be grateful for your input by November 15; you can comment below or write to mlaflamme [at] plos.org to share your perspective.”
