Quality Assurance
protocols.io
What is protocols.io?
The protocols.io platform is a free and open access repository for recording and sharing detailed up-to-date research methods and protocols. It allows researchers to easily create, edit, share, and get credit for their protocols, and provides an open access hub for scientists to communicate improvements and corrections to scientific methods.
The platform is useful for researchers in any discipline that uses a step-by-step methodology, such as biology, life science fields, medical science, health science, chemistry, neuroscience, engineering, data science, and computational science.
Features
protocols.io's editor provides a structured way to create and modify a protocol in minutes. They can be made from scratch or uploaded and easily converted from an existing Word or PDF document.
Protocols and changes to them can be published for everyone to see or shared with selected individuals. Updates to protocols can be captured in new versions. Publicly published protocols can be assigned DOIs, which are then easily discoverable and citable in your publication or independently as a separate research output.
You can find more information about the features of protocols.io here.
Limitation
The basic account is limited to 2 private protocols. Once a private protocol is published, you can create another private protocol.
Benefits
- Protocols are dynamic and interactive, helping with collaboration within a group or among co-authors outside of the university
- Continuous improvement and development: Users with access to a protocol can update, annotate, copy or fork it
- Research groups can organise and archive their methods ensuring that knowledge is not lost as trainees move on
- You can create different levels of access for any protocol
- Interoperability with GitHub, OSF, RSpace, SciNote, and LabArchives
- protocols.io renders in most browsers and devices – no apps or plugins needed. You can run the protocol step-by-step alongside your experiment, save a run record, and safeguard it
- Connect your protocols.io account with your ORCID and information about your published protocols are automatically posted onto the Works section of your ORCID record
- Citing your published protocol in your publication can significantly shorten your method section, which then focuses on the broader level of applied methodology
- Receive and provide feedback via endorsement (Works for me) and commenting on steps
- Run mode permits to execute an entire protocol as checklist alongside your experiment so you know when each step was completed (https://www.protocols.io/help/run)
Video Tutorials
protocols.io FAQ
protocols.io Reward Program
Teaching: "Write my Protocol" Workshop
During this hands-on workshop, the participants work with expert instructors to write a reusable step-by-step protocol, or improve an existing protocol for a procedure that they perform in their own research. They will complete an exercise to quickly structure their protocol and use an online protocol repository to enhance readability.
You can find more information here.
