End of protocols.io Institutional License

From Jan 1, 2025, every protocols.io user with a Charité or BIH email address will be reverted to the basic protocols.io account settings which includes only two private protocols. 

If you have more than two private protocols, please rest assured that none of them will be deleted. However, if you have more than two private protocols, you will not be able to create any additional new protocol drafts. Users will need to either publicly share all but one of those private protocols, or delete all but one protocol and will then be able to create a new protocol draft. 

Please note that if a protocol has a reserved DOI, it will not count as a private file as we will see that you intend to make it public. Therefore, if you have multiple protocols that all correspond to one single manuscript that you plan to submit, you can create more than two protocols as long as you reserve DOIs for them as you create them. 

Yes, the workspace has a limit of up to 100 MB. In general, this is sufficient as protocol files are rarely large and linking files from external sources is possible. But you can contact info@protocols.io if you think this will be an issue for you. Individual exceptions can be made if necessary for some justifiable reason.

These workgroups will remain with all existing admin rights. However, all members will be limited by the new restrictions of number of private files and capacity. If you have external collaborators who are members of these workspaces, you should inform them about this coming change.

Please look in the file manager of your workspace. Public protocols have a blue icon, while private protocols have an orange icon. 

In any workspace where you have created protocols that you would like to export a local copy of, select the protocol (or protocols), then click Export. There are options to either print the protocol or to export to JSON or PDF format. Please note that to export to JSON, you need to use the protocols.io open API. 

Yes, it is! The major benefit is that protocols can be shared publicly and a DOI can be obtained and linked to from your research paper’s materials and methods sections. All protocols are versionable dynamic documents. Sharing your protocols this way creates living documents that better capture the evolution of methods development and are very useful to the research community. Additionally, as these public protocols are always available open access, anyone can browse and select from the more than 19,000 public protocols available in the repository to either run or adapt by generating their own forked version. For users primarily interested in protocol reproducibility while publicly sharing their protocols, the platform protocols.io remains one of the best solutions that currently exists.

Some questions may already be answered on the protocols.io help site. 
For anything related to the protocols.io platform, please contact info@protocols.io
For anything related to the ending of this premium service for Charité or BIH users and future developments ensuring method reproducibility, please contact René Bernard.