The Road to Global Open Research is Paved with Good Intentions

From the time of launch, protocols.io was set up with openness and open access as a core mission and value of the organisation. From day one, OA was written into our Terms of Service, all published protocols are open access with a CC BY license by default (no other options are given). Anyone can create an account on protocols.io, create protocols and publish them for free – as many as they like with zero charge. We effectively have no barriers to open access for all research protocols. What’s truly brilliant about this is that even if a researcher hasn’t managed to publish an article open access, if they’ve placed the granular details about their methods into a repository like protocols.io, then their approach will be available for anyone to find. And all of these published protocols are available regardless of where any potential interested viewer/user is located, as long as they have an internet connection and means to search the web.