Open Research Graduate Engagement Leads Kirralise Hansford, Luqman Muraina and Melissa Kays outline their ongoing work creating and nurturing an open research community of practice at York
The theme of this year’s Open Access Week is ‘Community over commercialisation‘ and the Open Research team are dedicated to nurturing a community of practice for open research through new communication channels, surveys and case studies highlighting projects and initiatives from across the University.
One of the team’s recent successes has been the launch of an Open Research Newsletter, which we plan to publish approximately every two months. This serves as a valuable source of information, offering updates on open research initiatives, resources, and upcoming events. It provides a structured channel through which we can disseminate critical information and keep the community engaged and informed. The newsletter is a key tool for delivering the latest updates, ensuring that everyone is up to date with our efforts and activities. We’re looking forward to expanding the structure and formatting of this newsletter to make sure that it is continuously meeting the needs of our research community.
In addition to the newsletter, we have expanded the social media presence of Open Research at York to include a new Instagram account. The visual nature of this platform complements our existing Twitter/X account, offering a different way to engage with the community, in particular postgraduate and early career researchers. We’re excited to showcase the visual aspects of open research at the University through thoughtfully curated posts and stories. It will allow us to reach a broader audience and create a more engaging, visual narrative around both Library and practitioner-led initiatives. This, in turn, builds awareness and support for our team’s work and broader open research principles.
By expanding our communication channels through the newsletter and Instagram, the Open Research team are not only sharing knowledge but also aiming to strengthen the overall sense of community across the wider university. We are providing a clear and accessible window into our work, helping to build a more informed and engaged open research community at York.
Practising open research techniques can be tricky, and people sometimes do not know where to start or what support is available to help them integrate these practices into their work. One of our key next steps as Graduate Engagement Leads is to assess the current level of understanding of open research practices within each faculty. In 2020, a University-wide survey was conducted assessing adoption and understanding of open research practices, which concluded that most respondents had no experience of the majority of practices and did not know how important they were. The main barriers to open research were identified as lack of training, funding, clarity, and understanding.
This semester we are running three new surveys within the faculties of Arts and Humanities, Sciences and Social Sciences, asking staff and students to give their feedback on the types of open research practices they have used before, and which practices they would like to know more about. The surveys also ask the best ways that the team can support researchers and students to incorporate open research into their everyday work, and assess what form of initiatives and training would be most beneficial.
Different departments and schools are likely to have different barriers to adopting open research techniques, and following these surveys we will be able to address these concerns in tailored support sessions at a local level. Reassessing University-wide understanding of open research practices will allow us to compare results from the 2020 survey to those being run in 2023, to see if adoption of open research techniques has improved or not. Maintaining our understanding of the challenges that staff and students face regarding the integration of open research practices in their work means that we can offer direct and accessible support to our research community going forward.
Understanding what open research means can be tricky and researchers can find it difficult to incorporate it into their conventional research and research practices. This is the main motivation behind promoting visual awareness of open research practices through our series of case studies. These highlight how researchers have explored and embedded various open research practices in their projects, including open access publishing, preregistration and participatory and community-led research.
A new set of case studies will soon be published based on projects which were highlighted in our 2023 Open Research Awards as encouraging dialogue and broader thinking about open research and its implementation. We are planning to adapt the case studies to a range of formats including posters which will intend to explain and communicate at a glance various open research practices that can be explored by other researchers. We aim to create further case studies by looking into various projects across the three faculties, including those that have not already been recognised through our Awards scheme.
We look forward to sharing more of Kirralise, Luqman and Melissa’s work throughout the year, including future events and new resources to engage our community of researchers. Further information about the University’s commitments, governance and support for open research can be found at Open research at York.