Introduction to Open Scholarship

Open Scholarship is a broad and somewhat loose term that has emerged in response to a need to identify and speak to a growing number of open practices within academia. Open Access, Open Science, Open Data, and Open Education make up a sprawling landscape of interconnected approaches to and focuses on “openness”.

With roots in democracy, equality, and social justice, open scholarship operates under the assumption that knowledge creation and dissemination should be understood as social practices. In this sense, as Tom Woodward has stated, “Open is a purposeful path towards connection and community,” and the values of inclusion, social impact, and participation are integral to the practice of open”.^[1] In recent years, there has also been increased emphasis on open methods to advance the speed, sharing, and integrity of scientific discovery.

Open scholarship is the application of open practices throughout the teaching, learning, research and scholarly environment. Examples of open practices include:

• The use of open copyright licenses that grant permission for others to freely access, reuse, redistribute, or build upon your scholarly work.
• Using networks, web-based tools, and the Internet to facilitate collaboration.
• Making research processes, data, and code transparent in order to increase the reproducibility and accessibility of research.
• Creating and using educational resources that are free of costs and copyright restrictions in order to lower student costs and access barriers for learning materials such as textbooks.
• Integrating principles of social justice into academic processes in order to make scholarship more equitable and inclusive.
• Engaging in pedagogical practices where learners are creators of knowledge and have agency in their own education.
• Connecting and engaging with communities, networks, and the broader public.