![COSIG Logo][1] ### **Anyone can do post-publication peer review.** ### **Anyone can be a steward of the scientific literature.** ### **Anyone can do forensic metascience.** ### **Anyone can sleuth.** However, investigating the integrity of the published scientific literature often requires domain-specific knowledge that not everyone will have. This open source project is a collection of guides written and maintained by publication integrity experts to distribute this domain-specific knowledge so that others can participate in post-publication peer review. COSIG currently hosts 28 guides and was last updated on 13 June 2025. Guides can be downloaded as [individual PDFs](https://osf.io/2kdez/files/osfstorage). A combined PDF with all guides included can be downloaded [here](https://osf.io/ynb8j). Suggestions to improve COSIG can be submitted by opening an issue on [COSIG's GitHub repo](https://github.com/cosig-pppr/cosig/issues) or by emailing [[email protected]](mailto:[email protected]). Before contributing, read COSIG's [Contributing](https://github.com/cosig-pppr/cosig/blob/main/CONTRIBUTING.md) and [Code of Conduct](https://github.com/cosig-pppr/cosig/blob/main/CODE_OF_CONDUCT.md) pages. ## **Table of Contents** ### General guides * [PubPeer commenting best practices](https://osf.io/sghaq) * [Extracting vector graphics from a PDF](https://osf.io/n8fvw) * [The vertical line test](https://osf.io/e3nfr) * [Image duplication](https://osf.io/547re) * [Image compression artifacts](https://osf.io/e5vzr) * [Software for image forensics](https://osf.io/g23pf) * [Reporting publication integrity issues to publishers](https://osf.io/4edk2) * [Citations](https://osf.io/5vknq) * [Citations to retracted publications](https://osf.io/9q3as) * [Formulaic research](https://osf.io/24dhu) * [Plagiarism of text](https://osf.io/ntcb4) * [Common dismissive responses to integrity concerns](https://osf.io/7w5ys) * [Suspicious venues](https://osf.io/vrk7e) * [Ethical approval of human subjects research](https://osf.io/6mwhe) ### Biology and medicine * [Antibody validation](https://osf.io/c6qmj) * [Misidentified and non-verifiable cell lines](https://osf.io/d7we5) * [Nucleotide sequence reagents](https://osf.io/2egvz) * [Tumor burden](https://osf.io/gzk8v) ### Materials sciences and engineering * [X-ray diffraction patterns - Scherrer's equation](https://osf.io/hf7qy) * [X-ray diffraction patterns - data duplication](https://osf.io/685xa) * [Energy dispersive X-ray spectroscopy](https://osf.io/shfjy) * [Elemental composition](https://osf.io/st8up) * [Tauc plots](https://osf.io/gpxvf) ### Mathematics, statistics and computer science * [Evaluating the performance of binary classifiers](https://osf.io/pvr4a) * [Evaluating the performance of multiclass classifiers](https://osf.io/5x2rp) * [Granularity-related inconsistency of means (GRIM)](https://osf.io/67bp4) * [Standard deviation versus standard error](https://osf.io/hp4yd) * [Multiple hypothesis correction](https://osf.io/csxd5) ## **License and citation** Except where otherwise indicated, all material in COSIG is available under a [CC BY-NC-SA 4.0 license](https://creativecommons.org/licenses/by-nc-sa/4.0/). That means that you are free to distribute, remix, adapt, and build upon the material in any medium or format for noncommercial purposes only, and only so long as COSIG is properly cited. If you remix, adapt, or build upon the material, you must license the modified material under identical terms. ### Citing COSIG itself #### APA style citation ``` (2025, June 4). Collection of Open Science Integrity Guides. Retrieved from https://doi.org/10.17605/OSF.IO/2KDEZ ``` #### MLA style citation ``` “Collection of Open Science Integrity Guides.” OSF, 4 June 2025. Web. ``` #### Chicago style citation ``` 2025. “Collection of Open Science Integrity Guides.” OSF. June 5. https://doi.org/10.17605/OSF.IO/2KDEZ. ``` #### BibTeX entry ``` @misc{cosig, title={Collection of Open Science Integrity Guides}, url={https://doi.org/10.17605/OSF.IO/2KDEZ}, publisher={OSF}, year={2025}, month={June} } ``` ### Citing a commentary explaining the motivation behind COSIG #### APA style citation ``` Richardson, R. (2025). The Collection of Open Science Integrity Guides (COSIG): Expanding participation in post-publication peer review. Zenodo. https://doi.org/10.5281/zenodo.15564777 ``` #### MLA style citation ``` Richardson, R. The Collection of Open Science Integrity Guides (COSIG): Expanding Participation in Post-publication Peer Review. Zenodo, 4 June 2025, doi:10.5281/zenodo.15564777. ``` #### Chicago style citation ``` Richardson, Reese. “The Collection of Open Science Integrity Guides (COSIG): Expanding Participation in Post-publication Peer Review”. Zenodo, June 4, 2025. https://doi.org/10.5281/zenodo.15564777. ``` #### BibTex entry ``` @article{cosig_commentary, author={Richardson, Reese}, title={The Collection of Open Science Integrity Guides (COSIG): Expanding participation in post-publication peer review}, month={June}, year={2025}, publisher={Zenodo}, doi={10.5281/zenodo.15564777}, url={https://doi.org/10.5281/zenodo.15564777} } ``` [1]: https://mfr.osf.io/export?url=https://osf.io/download/uqz3x/?direct=%26mode=render&format=2400x2400.jpeg