Open Scholarship in Applied Linguistics

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Open Scholarship in Applied Linguistics

Convenors:

 

Open scholarship (also known as open science or open research) is defined as “an inclusive construct that combines various movements and practices aiming to make multilingual scientific knowledge openly available,  accessible  and  reusable  for  everyone,  to  increase  scientific  collaborations  and  sharing of information for the benefits of science and society, and to open the processes of scientific knowledge creation, evaluation and communication to societal actors beyond the traditional scientific community. It comprises all scientific disciplines and aspects of scholarly practices, including basic and applied sciences, natural and social sciences and the humanities, and it builds on the following key pillars: open scientific knowledge, open [scholarship] infrastructures, research communication, open engagement of societal actors and open dialogue with other knowledge systems” (UNESCO, 2021, p. 6). The term open scholarship is used for this network for its broad connotation and inclusiveness.

The field of applied linguistics initiated open scholarship practices early on to enhance research quality and transparency, as evidenced by the establishment of IRIS, an open repository for research instruments and materials, back in 2011. There have been many initiatives to enhance research transparency, reproducibility and accessibility, ranging from Registered Reports at Language Learning to the Open Accessible Summaries in Language Studies (OASIS) initiative. Despite the initiatives and efforts by active proponents of open scholarship, the wider community of applied linguistics has yet to engage with open scholarship in greater depth. More efforts are still needed to raise the awareness of open scholarship and the many unresolved issues regarding research quality (Marsden & Plonsky, 2018). Considering the diversity of research paradigms in applied linguistics, it is even more important to initiate wider discussions among researchers with different epistemological stances and collaboratively pursue a discipline-specific understanding of open scholarship in applied linguistics.

The aims of our ReN are:

  • To raise the awareness of open scholarship in applied linguistics through talks, symposia and workshops
  • To promote dialogues between scholars in applied linguistics and neighbouring disciplines (e.g., psychology) as well as key stakeholders (e.g., publishers) on how open scholarship can be promoted and how challenges can be addressed
  • To facilitate academic exchange and collaborations on open scholarship in applied linguistics

Additional recent events and publications

  • On 9-10 June 2022, our inaugural ReN event, Open Scholarship in Applied Linguistics: What, Why and How, a two-day symposium, was successfully held online and received positive feedback from the audience. Videos of recorded sessions are shared on our YouTube channel.
  • We have a Zotero public library dedicated to promoting open scholarship research by our network members. The content is updated regularly.

Ongoing research and opportunities for collaboration

  • Contribution to a special issue (SI) on open scholarship: We plan to submit a SI proposal to Research Methods in Applied Linguistics. Our call for papers will be published soon and more details can be found on our network website.
  • Contribution to AILA 2024 World Congress: We will submit a proposal for a ReN symposium at AILA 2024 and we welcome contributions on any research regarding open scholarship. More details will be posted on our network website.
  • Contribution to ReN talk/workshop series: We will hold talk/workshop series to help raise the awareness of open scholarship in applied linguistics. If you have relevant experience (e.g., on-going/completed research or methodological skills), please email us to discuss further details.

Contact information