Researchers rely on a wide range of tools throughout the research lifecycle for storing data, analyzing results, writing papers, and sharing outcomes. The OSF helps bring those tools into one place, making it easier to organize, share, and connect your work.
Our latest release, Linked Services, introduces a new way to highlight connections between your OSF projects and the other tools you use.
You’ll now see a new Linked Services section on OSF project overview pages. This section allows you to connect your project to external research tools, starting with Dataverse, a widely used platform for sharing and preserving data. You can include optional metadata to describe how the service relates to your project, helping collaborators and visitors better understand the broader context.
More Linked Services will be added in the future, offering even greater flexibility in how OSF supports your research workflows.
Making It Easier to Link the Tools You Use
OSF already supports a range of add-ons that allow users to connect external tools, both for file storage and citation management. These integrations enable researchers to bring key parts of their workflow into OSF. However, building and maintaining full-featured add-ons requires a significant development investment, often limiting who can create them and how widely they’re adopted.
Linked Services offers a simpler, more scalable way to connect external tools to OSF. Unlike full add-ons, which require deep technical integration, Linked Services provide a lower-lift alternative. These connections are authenticated and trustworthy—more than just a hyperlink—and they allow you to describe how an external service relates to your project. This makes it easier to include the tools you're already using while adding helpful context for collaborators and readers. The result: more flexibility in how tools can connect to OSF, and a faster path for communities to expand the research ecosystem.
It also supports our commitment to open infrastructure by making it easier for external developers to contribute integrations. Whether through a robust add-on or a lightweight Linked Service, OSF helps researchers connect the tools they use across their research for greater efficiency and transparency.
Connect Your Tools, Contribute Your Ideas
Find step-by-step instructions for using Linked Services in our help guide, walking you through how to link tools to your OSF project, what metadata you can include, and how these links enhance your research.
If you’re a developer or technically inclined and interested in building new integrations with OSF, we’d love to hear from you. Join our growing open source community by filling out this short interest form. Whether you're just getting started or an experienced contributor, there’s a place for you. Your work can help connect more tools to OSF and make open research more accessible, discoverable, and sustainable.
We’re excited to see how Linked Services helps researchers bring more of their work together in one place. As the OSF continues to evolve, we’ll keep making it easier to connect, contextualize, and share your research.
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