Metadata on the OSF

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The following is a Table of Contents that links directly to specific sections within the guide.


Overview

Metadata is the term used for the descriptive information you provide about your OSF content. Adding metadata increases the discoverability and usability of your work on the OSF. 

Commonly Used Metadata fields

Title

Contributor

Description

Subject

Rights

Resource Type

Language

Funder

Date


Community Metadata Schemas

A limitation of the current metadata framework on OSF is that, by virtue of our goal to serve as many research areas as possible, it is very general. To really describe research objects in detail, communities need specialized metadata schemas. To support this we have integrated with a tool called the CEDAR workbench that allows communities to create and share metadata templates. We have already added several community-created templates, listed below. Researchers who want to use one select the specialized template on OSF and fill out the additional metadata form. The contents of the completed form are displayed alongside the OSF standard metadata. It is also possible to download the additional metadata as a JSON file.

Which community standards are available on OSF?

  • Human Cognitive Neuroscience Data

    • Are you afraid nobody can find your opened dataset in cognitive neuroscience?

      The template aims to generate and share standardized metadata of cognitive neuroscience research projects with human subjects, to enrich publicly accessible domain-specific metadata, and subsequently enhance the discoverability/searchability and reusability of the shared resource.

      This metadata template was developed by the research team at the Max Planck Institute of Empirical Aesthetics in collaboration with DataCite. The template was built as part of the Implementing FAIR Workflows Project (TWCF0568), funded by the Templeton World Charity Foundation.

      The template was built with the Center for Expanded Data Annotation and Retrieval (CEDAR) Workbench. Learn more about CEDAR metadata templates here.

      Feel free to contact Zefan Zheng per email if you have any questions about the metadata template.

  • LDbase Project Metadata Form

    • LDbase is an NIH-funded behavioral research data repository for studies on Learning and Development. The LDbase taxonomy includes descriptors for projects in the fields of educational and developmental sciences, emphasizing the key terms and pieces of metadata that are important for learning and development research specifically. Developed as a collaboration between researchers and librarians, LDbase is a first-of-its-kind project-oriented data repository, containing decades of knowledge and including data ranging from pre-K to higher education on a variety of different topics and subfields of research.


      Each field is designed to collect a different piece of information related to the project, gathering metadata on information related to the project's design and methodologies, the individuals and organizations involved, the constructs assessed and the composition of participants, and much more. Help text is provided for the fields to assist in the completion of this form and can be accessed by hovering over the question mark symbol alongside each field. When applicable, options are available for adding additional cases or instances for fields such as project investigator where multiple entries will need to be identified. A list of potential terms has further been identified for each field, providing a list of options to choose from for each field to allow for quicker and more efficient completion of this form. Finally, although not all fields are required, we strongly recommend and encourage completing as many of the fields as possible, as the information provided will help in the discoverability and subsequent reuse of your project.

  • metaBUS
    • metaBUS metadata template for applied psychology and organizational research
  • OSF Enhanced Metadata (Datacite 4.4)
    • The purpose of this form is to add additional metadata (descriptive information) to the OSF object (project or file) associated with it. The form is based on the DataCite metadata schema (version 4.4) that is itself built from DublinCore. Completing the form will render a JSON file that can be viewed and downloaded by viewers of your OSF content.
  • Psych-DS Official Template

    • Psych-DS is a community data standard that provides a systematic way of formatting and documenting scientific datasets, particularly in the psychological and behavioral sciences.


      Our data standard provides a lightweight set of guidelines for creating consistently and sensibly structured data directories with human- and machine-readable metadata files. The goal of the project is to help researchers take their important first steps in making their valuable data not just available, but interpretable and interoperable to the broader community. 

Using Community metadata schemas in Projects or Registrations

In order to add or edit a metadata record to your project, registration or file you will need to have either Admin or Read + Write permissions. For your metadata to be publicly available your project must be public.


To add a community metadata record, click the Edit button in the metadata section of your project or registration overview, or use the navigation link in the sidebar.


Then select Add community metadata record



Select the Metadata Template applicable to your Project, by clicking the Select button.


A form will appear with all the fields in the community metadata template. Fields with a red asterisk are required.



Once all of the required fields have been populated, the button at the bottom of the screen will change from “Save Draft” to “Publish”


Your new community metadata record will be displayed in a tab along the top of the metadata page.




You can additionally share, download, or edit the metadata file.


Share: Click the share Icon to create a URL to share your metadata record


Download: Click the Download Icon to download the metadata record as a .json file More information about the JSON format


Example 1: OSF metadata

Example 2: CEDAR metadata template (Psych-DS Official Template)

Edit: Click the Edit button to edit the metadata record



In projects that include files you can also add community metadata templates to files themselves.


Open the file from the files page of the project



Once you have opened the file you will see the same Add community metadata button as was present on the metadata editing page.


The rest of the process is the same as it was on the project or registration editing screen.


Adding/editing metadata

Creating new content

When creating new content in OSF you will be asked to supply some metadata. For OSF Projects you must supply a title. You may optionally include a description, license and affiliated institution if you are part of a member institution.


The registration creation process will also ask for some basic metadata before you begin answering the registration question templates: title, contributors, affiliated institution if you are part of a member institution, license, subject, and tags.



The preprint creation process will provide space for all possible metadata fields.

Editing metadata (projects & registrations)

Other important metadata can be added to projects and registration after their initial creation. This includes information on funders, the type of materials added, and languages.


To add or edit metadata for projects and registration, select the Metadata section on the left-hand navbar for either a Left - registration or Right - Project.



On the next page you will see all the metadata fields available. Some will be populated already with the data you entered when you created the content. Others can be filled in for the first time.

You can add or edit any of these fields by clicking the Edit button in the section. Be sure to click the Save button once your changes have been entered.

Title

You can edit or change your title if needed by editing the registration metadata. Select edit next to the Title section of the metadata, edit the text and select “Save”.



Contributors

You can add additional contributors at this time, whether or not they already have an OSF account. 

When adding contributors, they will need to be assigned specific permissions. All co-authors are given read+write permissions by default. All permission levels can be bibliographic contributors; a non-bibliographic contributor will not have their name associated with the registration or project, but will maintain the granted permissions. The different levels of permissions are:

  • Read: The contributor can view the registration, but does not have permission to edit.
  • Read + Write: The contributor can view the registration, but does not have permission to edit. The author can add supplemental files.     
  • Administrator: The contributor can view and edit the registration, add supplemental files, manage authors and permissions, start an update, and submit a request to end an embargo early. For updates and ending embargoes early, all admins will receive an email notification to approve or reject the request. See our guides on the 48 hour auto-approve process.

Adding a Contributor with an existing OSF account

If a contributor already has an account, they can be added as a registered user. Select “Add Contributor by Search”

  1. Then search for the contributor by name.
  2. Select the contributor.
  3. Select the appropriate permissions.
  4. Select "Next".

Adding an Unregistered Contributor

If a co-author already has an account, they can be added as a registered user. Select “Add Contributor by Search”

  1. Select “Add Unregistered Contributor”
  2. Enter the contributor a) name and b) email address.
  3. Select “Add”

You can remove contributors using the RED trash can, edit permissions by clicking the {V} arrow button, and change bibliographic status.



Reorder Authors

The order in which your authors appear in the "Authors" list is the order in which they will appear in citations. To reorder authors, select the icon with three bars, then drag and drop the authors into the correct order.


Institutional Affiliation

If your institution has worked with the Center for Open Science to create a dedicated institutional OSF landing page, you can affiliate your content with the institution in OSF. This is an option when creating content, but can also be edited later. Select Edit in the Affiliated Institutions field and then select the Institution you wish to be affiliated with the content. NOTE: you can only add/remove affiliations that are associated with your account.


License

A license tells others how they can use your work in the future and only applies to the information and files submitted with the registration. For more information, see this help guide.

Select a license by clicking the dropdown menu to select an option.


Subjects

Subjects allow users to categorize their work for easier search and identification by other researchers. You can use the Search field to find more subject areas.


Tags

Tags are an excellent way of highlighting keywords to help your work appear in a researcher's search criteria. Start with the generic terms associated with your project (ex. Virology) and work towards more specific terminology (Covid-19).



Additional metadata fields


Resource type presents you with a dropdown list of choices provided by the DataCite schema. This information is critical when creating a DOI for your project. You should select the choice that most closely adheres to your project. If your project primarily contains a dataset for example, you can select dataset. If your project contains a mix of different materials, you can select collection. Later on, you can add more specific resource types to individual files. A full list of the available types and their definitions is found by clicking the question mark icon on the editing page next to Resource type



Resource language asks for a predominant language for materials in your collection. These choices are again selected from a dropdown list. Since this list is longer, you may want to start to type in the language name to find it more quickly.


Funding information asks for any data funding from an organization for your content. The field will allow you to search names from Crossref Funder Registry to add that funder’s name to your project. This will add both the funder name and their ID number to your metadata enabling that funder to find your project more easily.


Additional information about the award title, a URI where more information can be found and an award number can also be added. 

If your project is the recipient of funding from more than one body, click the Add more button to add more funders. Once all funding information has been added, click the blue Save button to record your changes.

In preprints metadata can be edited by using the Edit button at the top of the preprint page. This is also detailed in the Section (replace with URL, edit your preprint)


This will return you to the preprint submission form where you can make changes.


Adding metadata to files

In addition to project metadata, you can also add limited metadata directly to files themselves. This can allow you to label what type of resource a file is (a dataset, or a journal article for example), its language (if applicable), a description, and a title (if it is different from the file name).


Files must first be uploaded to an OSF project or registration before adding additional metadata. Metadata can be added to files in your native OSF storage or from one of your storage add-ons. This metadata will exist in your OSF project or registration and will not affect files saved on external storage.


Once the files you wish to describe are uploaded, navigate to the project or registration Files page. Click on the file you wish to describe to open up the file-level view.




You will see two sections of metadata on the left of the screen: File Metadata and Project Metadata. The File Metadata will be the only part that is editable from this screen. The other metadata can be changed by editing the Project or Registration level metadata.


To edit the file metadata, click on the Edit button.



You will now be able to enter or edit a title and description for the file. Additionally, you may choose a Resource type and Resource language from the dropdown lists. The Resource type list comes from the DataCite schema. You can find out more about the definition of each type in this Resources Type Help Guide.


Once you have completed your changes to the file metadata, click the Save button to record your changes.


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