COS maintains a free, open source infrastructure composed of a set of
backend services (e.g., file storage, file rendering,
authentication/authorization) and interfaces built on top of those
services (e.g., OSF.io, OSF Preprints). The OSF is a scholarly commons
of composable services and data archiving. The scope and complexity of
the OSF significantly exceeds the requirements for The Commons. The OSF
was designed from the start for enterprise-level quality for
scalability, efficient extensibility via modular design, and reliable
security, access, and preservation via modern solutions. Collectively,
the
OSF’s entirely
open-source, composable suite of services consist of
~330,000 lines of code produced via 53,491 commits
maintained by an expert infrastructure team of product, engineering,
labs, and QA of about 40 full-time employees. OSF hosts
~14,400 gB of research data across more than 76,000
projects, 7,500 registrations, and with dozens of partners. SHARE
contains more than 25 million research events harvested from
~150 providers.
COS’s modular development approach enables developers to make real
contributions to the codebase right away and scale developers quickly
with their motivation, ability, and accelerated learning. Many of the
ASAPbio requirements for The Commons are already met with the OSF,
SHARE, and OSF Preprints services. This is illustrated with established
partnerships with 12 groups and consortia already for hosting their
preprint services, five of which are
in production as of April 2017.