1. Academic Presence on OWL
Your OpenWorldLab profile is your public scientific identity. It bridges your verified academic credentials, published preprints and articles, micro-research updates (sparks), institutional affiliations, and group memberships into a single, cohesive academic portfolio.
2. The 15 User Types & Roles
OWL provides 15 tailored user categories ordered roughly by academic career progression:
| Career Stage / Role | Description |
|---|---|
| Student | Studying at undergraduate or masters level. |
| PhD Candidate | Working toward a doctorate. |
| Postdoctoral Researcher | Holding a doctorate and working on a fixed-term research appointment. |
| Research Staff / Technician | Supporting research as permanent staff — technicians, engineers, data and lab managers. |
| Lecturer / Teaching Faculty | Faculty whose appointment is primarily teaching. |
| Assistant Professor | Early-career faculty, typically pre-tenure. Equivalent to Lecturer in the UK. |
| Associate Professor | Mid-career faculty. Equivalent to Reader or Senior Lecturer in the UK. |
| Professor | Senior faculty, typically leading a research group. |
| Researcher | Doing research in a role none of the more specific titles above describes. |
| Industry Researcher | Working in research or development outside academia. |
| Clinician | Practising medicine or allied health, with or without a research role. |
| Science Communicator | Writing about, teaching or broadcasting science to a wider audience. |
| Enthusiast | Here out of curiosity rather than professionally. |
| Institution | An account representing an organisation rather than a person. |
| Funder | Funding research — a foundation, agency or individual donor. |
3. ORCID OAuth Verification
To eliminate fake profiles and impersonation, OWL integrates directly with ORCID (Open Researcher and Contributor ID) via official 3-legged OAuth authentication.
- Connect your ORCID iD by editing your public profile header.
- You authenticate securely through the official ORCID authorization screen.
- OWL records the cryptographically verified 16-character ORCID iD (e.g.
0000-0002-1825-0097). - Uniqueness Constraint: Exactly one OWL account can claim a given ORCID iD.
- Your profile proudly displays the verified green ORCID badge linking to your official publication record.
Researcher Identity
Cryptographic ORCID Integration
Required for group ownership & grant claims
Official 3-Legged OAuth
0000-0002-1825-0097
Key Guarantees:
- Eliminates impersonation and automated bots
- Strict 1-to-1 account uniqueness across the platform
- Direct link to verified publication record
Institutional Registry
Academic Affiliation Badges
Validated against global institution registries
Key Guarantees:
- Verified
.edu/.ac.uktoken - Automatic transition to 'Past' appointment badge
- Prevents academic employment misrepresentation
Account Security
Two-Factor Authentication
Recommended for securing administrative lab access
Authenticator Code
482 910
Key Guarantees:
- Compatible with Google Auth, 1Password & YubiKey
- Guards financial payout and administrative actions
- Zero-knowledge recovery code mechanisms
4. Institutional Email Verification
Display verified badges for your current and past academic appointments:
5. Current vs Past Affiliations
Every affiliation is in one of two states, and which one it is decides how it appears to everyone else. The state is not a switch you set independently; it is read from the end date, so it can never disagree with the dates shown next to it.
The tick means one specific thing: at some point you proved control of an address on that institution’s own domain. Leaving does not make that untrue, so the verification is kept and the badge simply changes tone.
- You do not need access to the old address to mark an affiliation as past.
- You do not need to re-verify if you later restore it to current.
- Deleting an affiliation is a different action: it removes the record entirely, and re-adding it means verifying by email again, which is impossible once you lose access to the address. If you have simply left, mark it past rather than deleting it.
| State | When it applies | How it appears on your profile |
|---|---|---|
| Current | No end date, or an end date that has not passed yet (a contract with a known finish date is still current until that day). | Emerald badge reading Verified Affiliation. Listed first. |
| Past | An end date that has already passed. | Muted slate badge reading Verified Past Affiliation, with the end date in the tooltip. |
How to mark an affiliation as past
- 1 Go to Settings > Affiliations. Affiliations are grouped under Current and Past headings.
- 2 On the affiliation you have left, click I’ve left.
- 3 Confirm the last day you were there. It defaults to today, so if you have just left you can accept it as-is.
- 4 Click Mark as past. The affiliation moves to the Past section immediately, and the badge on your profile changes tone.
6. Profile Customization & External Links
Your OpenWorldLab profile is your public scientific identity. It gathers your laboratory affiliations, research publications, code repositories, and community channels in a unified header:
- Avatar Photo: 1:1 square image (up to 1MB, automatically optimized to WebP).
- Panoramic Cover Banner: 4:1 widescreen header (1920×480px, up to 2MB) for laboratory branding or research visuals.
- Research Interest Taxonomy: Select up to 8 multi-level discipline paths (e.g. Physics / Quantum / Optics) to power discovery across topic feeds and job recommendations.
You can paste either a full URL (e.g. https://github.com/torvalds) or a plain handle (e.g. torvalds). OWL automatically extracts and stores the canonical identifier, preventing broken links and displaying crisp, direct links on your profile header.
Dr. Jane Doe
Associate Professor of Quantum OpticsConnected Academic & Social Links:
Code & Model Hubs
GitHub · GitLab · Hugging Face · Kaggle
Share research datasets, open weights & software repos
Citations & Registries
Scholar · arXiv · Semantic · PubMed · OSF · Zenodo · DBLP
Permanent author bibliography and DOI cross-linking
Social & Discussion
Bluesky · Mastodon · Discord · YouTube · LinkedIn · X · Reddit
Direct public scientific communication and outreach links
Code & Data Repositories
Connect version control and model weights:
GitHub: Handle or full profile URL
GitLab: Handle or full profile URL
Hugging Face: Organization/user handle or model link
Kaggle: Profile handle or dataset page
Academic & Citation Indices
Connect scientific indices and preprint registries:
Google Scholar: 12-character user ID or citations URL
arXiv: Author identifier (e.g. smith_j_1) or profile URL
Semantic Scholar & PubMed: Author ID or bibliography URL
Open Science Framework (OSF) & Zenodo: Project/DOI IDs
OpenReview & ResearchGate: Profile handle or vanity URL
DBLP: Computer science bibliography handle
Social & Community Channels
Connect public channels and discussion spaces:
Bluesky & Mastodon: Handle or instance account
LinkedIn & Threads: Profile URL or public slug
X (Twitter): Handle or profile link
Discord & YouTube: Server invite or channel handle
Reddit & Telegram: Subreddit, username, or channel
7. Sparks vs Articles
OpenWorldLab supports two primary formats for sharing scientific thought and published research:
Sparks (Micro-Posts)
Fast, lightweight posts up to 1,024 characters, with up to 20 images or videos and an optional poll. Ideal for preliminary lab data, conference notes, quick questions to the community, or paper announcements. Sparks are not filed under research areas.
Articles (Long-Form)
Full-length rich-text publications supporting formatted typography, LaTeX/mathematical notation, syntax-highlighted code blocks, embedded charts, and downloadable datasets.
8. Notifications & Preferences
Manage incoming alerts across five discrete notification categories in Settings > Notifications:
- Social: Likes, bookmarks, replies, new followers, group invitations, and group-to-group link requests.
- Chat: Direct researcher messages and synchronized group messaging channels under Messages.
- Fundraising: Campaign review decisions, milestone goals, and backer pledges.
- System: Platform announcements and content moderation notices.
- Security: New device logins, password resets, and email modifications (mandatory alerts).
9. Security & Two-Factor Authentication (TOTP)
Protect your account and group administrative privileges with optional Two-Factor Authentication:
10. Recovery Codes
Recovery codes are how you get back into your account when your authenticator app is gone (like a lost, wiped, or replaced phone). Enabling 2FA takes you straight to the recovery codes page, where one click issues a set of 10 single-use codes, each looking like ABCDEFGH-IJKLMNOP.
A set rather than one code, because a single code cannot actually be spent: using it would leave the account with no way back in at all. With a set, each lockout costs one code and the remaining count is shown in your settings long before it reaches zero.
- Single use: A code stops working the moment it signs you in. 10 codes means 10 recoveries before you need a new set.
- Shown exactly once: They are stored hashed, the same way passwords are, so nobody, including our team, can display them again. Copy or download them when they appear.
- Counted, not listed: Settings > Security (2FA) shows how many of the 10 remain, and warns you when three or fewer are left.
- Regenerating replaces the set: Generating new codes invalidates every code you currently hold, including unused ones. Regeneration asks for a code from your authenticator first.
Accounts enrolled under the older scheme hold a single recovery code. It still works, once. Settings > Security (2FA) flags this, and generating a new set replaces it with the full 10.
How to sign in with a recovery code
- 1 Sign in with your email and password as usual.
- 2 On the two-factor screen, click Lost your device? Use a recovery code.
- 3 Type any unused code. Hyphens, spaces, and lower case are all fine: only the letters and digits are compared.
- 4 You land on the recovery codes page, which tells you how many are left and lets you generate a new set.
How to generate a new set
- 1 Go to Settings > Security (2FA) and click Manage recovery codes.
- 2 Enter the current 6-digit code from your authenticator app.
- 3 Click Generate new codes and save the 10 codes shown.
11. Developer API Keys
Automate publications and integrate lab repositories using the RESTful Content API:
- Key Format:
owl_sk_<id>_<secret>. - Zero-Leakage Security: The secret is displayed once upon creation and stored exclusively as a SHA-256 digest in the database.
- Endpoints: Authorized developers can create, list, and revoke programmatic keys via
/api/v1/keysor request developer access via our Contact Form.