Open research tools

The Oxford University Research Archive (ORA) is a platform that stores, preserves and shares research outputs of the University.

Depositing your research outputs on ORA ensures that your research is made freely available to anyone and is the easiest way to make your research open.

Deposit in ORA

The Open Science Framework (OSF) is an open-source platform for study preregistrations and preprints. Until recently, it has also been a project management tool to help you manage the whole life cycle of your research project from the planning through to publication. It is available to all researchers.

Reductions in functionality were announced on 11 August 2026 for the parts of OSF used for project collaboration, file management and storage. From 16 November 2026, users will no longer be able to create new projects or components. From 19 February 2027, public and private projects will no longer be editable. Public projects will continue to be viewable at existing links, while private projects are expected to be removed later.

Given these changes, we recommend OSF users at Oxford migrate any live projects needing further updates to other appropriate repositories or tools, following the guidance from the Center for Open Science. For private projects that are complete and do not need further updates, we recommend making these public or migrating them to an appropriate alternative platform. Although OSF intends to continue access for existing public projects, it is always good practice to keep backups of your projects elsewhere.

For further advice, Oxford University’s Research Data Management guidance includes options for storing, managing and sharing research data.

To find out more:

• Read about the changes to OSF and guidance for existing users
• Register for the Open Science Framework service (you will need an Oxford-affiliated ORCID)
• Find out more about the Center for Open Science

For questions about the recent changes to OSF, or how to use the service for your research, please email: osfenquiries@bodleian.ox.ac.uk

The University of Oxford Digital Object Identifier Service (Oxford DOI Service) is operated by the Bodleian Libraries and allows University-based digital repositories to assign DOIs to their research outputs via their own account using DataCite's Fabrica service.

This service is for researchers to request DOIs for research that is not hosted by the Oxford Research Archive (ORA).

If you would like to request an DOI, please email doi-service@bodleian.ox.ac.uk 

Sustainable Digital Scholarship (SDS) is a research data management service, helping projects and researchers to store, publish and sustain their research data outputs. SDS is open to all researchers and projects across the University.

protocols.io is a scientific protocol repository hosting service. It provides a space for sharing detailed protocols and research methods, and is designed to support research projects and enable collaboration between researchers. 

The University holds an institutional premium plan which includes unlimited private workspaces for team collaboration, enhanced reproducibility through interactive, version-controlled protocols, and increased visibility for research methods through DOI-citable publication.

It is available to all students, researchers and staff at the University of Oxford.

Covidence is a web-based software platform that streamlines the production of systematic reviews. It supports reference screening, full-text review, risk of bias assessment, extraction of study characteristics and outcomes, and the export of data and references.

It is available to all staff, researchers and students at the University.