Announcing OpenScales: An Open Repository of Psychological Scales

[stmueller]

We're building a community repository of psychological scales, questionnaires, and survey instruments in a standard, machine-readable format.

What is it?

OpenScales uses the Open Scale Definition (OSD) format — a JSON-based specification where each .osd file contains the complete scale definition, scoring rules, and multilingual
translations in a single self-contained document. Scales can be run directly in the browser, administered via PEBL desktop software, or exported to REDCap, Qualtrics, LimeSurvey,
PsyToolkit, QTI 3.0, and Surveydown.

What's available?

• 171 fully open scales (PHQ-9, GAD-7, CES-D, many IPIP scales, IPIP-NEO, SUS, SF-36, and many more)
• 209 PhenX Toolkit measures (auto-converted)
• 50 languages across the repository
• Declarative scoring with reverse coding, value maps, transforms, computed variables, and norms
• Rich question types: Likert, VAS, multiple choice, grids, free text, numeric, date/time

How to get involved

• Browse and run scales at https://openscales.net
• The repository, specification, and tools are on GitHub
• We welcome scale contributions, translations, and license documentation

If you maintain or have developed a scale that is freely available for research use, we'd love to include it. Scales with existing translations are especially valuable. Contributing
is as simple as creating a JSON file following the OSD specification, or we can help convert from existing formats.