The Collection of Open Science Integrity Guides (COSIG) is a free, open collection of practical guides for examining published research and raising concerns responsibly. It launched on 4 June 2025 with 27 guides described in launch coverage; by June 2026, its official site and a paper by the collection’s authors reported 35. The guides offer ways to scrutinize scientific papers, not evidence that any particular researcher or study has committed misconduct.
What COSIG is—and who it is for
COSIG is a collection of resources for post-publication peer review (PPPR): examining research after it has been published, then discussing or reporting possible problems. Its goal is to make specialized knowledge more accessible, whether a reader needs an introduction to PPPR, a method for checking a particular type of evidence, or guidance on communicating a concern.
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The project’s official site says, “Anyone can do post-publication peer review.” It also acknowledges an important qualification: investigating research integrity can require domain-specific knowledge. The guides are starting points for informed scrutiny, not substitutes for expertise or proof of wrongdoing. [COSIG official site]
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The collection combines general guidance with practical methods and discipline-specific material. Examples reported at launch included advice on commenting on PubPeer, image problems, citations, ethics approval, plagiarism, antibody verification, and cell lines that cannot be verified. The guides also addressed questions in areas such as X-ray diffraction and spectroscopy, computer science, mathematics, and statistics.
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The official collection’s listed subjects include:
- Getting started and reporting: introductions to PPPR, commenting on PubPeer, reporting concerns to publishers, common dismissive responses, and legal considerations.
- Checking evidence and materials: extracting vector graphics and tabular data, image duplication and compression artifacts, image-forensics software, Excel-based data forensics, and formulaic research.
- Publication and research practices: citations, citations to retracted publications, plagiarism, suspicious venues, human-subjects ethics approval, and pseudoreplication.
The collection is maintained and expanded, so its topics and total can change. The official site listed 35 guides in an update reported as 10 June 2026; an introduction by Ozturk, Pirelli, and Richardson in PLOS Biology also described 35 guides written by 22 experts in 2026. [COSIG official site] [PLOS Biology introduction]
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Why the guide count changed after launch
The launch-time figure and the later count refer to different dates, not conflicting versions of the same snapshot. Chemistry World reported 27 handbooks when COSIG was unveiled on 4 June 2025. By June 2026, the official site and the authors’ article reported 35 guides, reflecting the collection’s growth. [Chemistry World launch report] [COSIG official site] [PLOS Biology introduction]
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How to access and reuse the guides
COSIG’s site offers individual guides as PDFs as well as a combined PDF. It invites suggestions through an issue in its repository or by email. The site states that the default license is Creative Commons Attribution-NonCommercial-ShareAlike 4.0 (CC BY-NC-SA 4.0), unless an individual guide says otherwise. That generally requires attribution, restricts reuse to noncommercial purposes, and requires adaptations to use the same license. Check the notice on the specific guide before sharing or adapting it. [COSIG official site]
Independent reader supportYour contribution helps us test, update, and keep practical guides available for everyone.Using a guide without jumping to conclusions
A guide can help a reader understand what to inspect and how to describe a concern. It does not, by itself, establish that an apparent anomaly is misconduct. A responsible approach is to stay close to observable evidence, account for the relevant research method and subject area, and use appropriate channels when reporting a concern. COSIG’s stated purpose is to support scrutiny and constructive reporting; the existence of a guide or a question about a paper is not a verdict.
The collection’s creators have described wider participation as a way to expand post-publication review. But the sources cited here do not establish how much COSIG has increased detection, reporting, or correction of problematic research. [Chemistry World launch report] [PLOS Biology introduction]
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