In 2020, Countway Library launched a pilot with protocols.io, bringing unlimited Premium accounts to Harvard Medical School, Harvard School of Dental Medicine and Harvard T.H. Chan School of Public Health users. Today, we are happy to announce an extension through January 30, 2027.
Over the last four years, we have seen exponential growth in users (179%), private protocols (628%), and public protocols (4,650%). Just look at these numbers comparing February 2020 to this year!
As we seek to advance open science, the Countway Library continues to support ways to unlock the underlying methods and protocols used in lab experiments. Premium accounts enables an unlimited number of individuals and groups to use the platform for private methods.
With the fast uptake and increased public sharing of methods, we anticipate that this use will translate into more rigorous and reproducible research methods used by Harvard researchers.
Even through news of the platform acquisition by Springer Nature, Countway Library is encouraged that the "protocols.io business model, open access repository, and mission and vision will not change" (protocols.io blog post July 26, 2023). Additionally, we have already seen countless improvements to the platform through the increased support Springer Nature provides. Therefore, we encourage HMS, HSDM, and HSPH users who came to the platform in 2020, if they haven’t been back, to take another look!
By continuing this pilot, we hope to increase the managing and tracking of research methods on the Longwood Medical Area campus, enabling better reporting and more reproducible publications from the Harvard research community, and also to learn about additional use cases for other Harvard schools and campuses.
You can find important details about the pilot and protocols.io on the Countway Library Data Services website. If you have any additional questions, please do not hesitate to contact the Countway Library Publishing and Data Services Team.