Funded by Research England, post-doctoral researcher Dorka Tamás and PhD candidate Christopher Cox have conducted interviews with colleagues from different faculties, schools and services across the University of Leeds, to raise awareness of open research practices across disciplines and career stages.
These are Chris' slides from an online event held on 22 September 2022.
For more information see the Library blog: https://leedsunilibrary.wordpress.com/tag/open-lunch/
2. Coming into this role
My knowledge about specific practises in open research (OR) was limited
Mainly related to open access and FAIR data
With my own research background I have always been strongly in favour of research
transparency and it having ‘real world’ impacts
Limited exposure and awareness (e.g. training, seminars, workshops, etc.) during by PhD
studies
Role therefore offered a great opportunity to enhance my knowledge and experiences with
OR
3. The step-by-step process we adopted for
conducting the case studies:
1) familiarise ourselves more with OR (e.g. secondary research, attending workshops,
seminars, open lunches, conferences, etc.)
2) split the faculties up between us (Chris: Social Sciences, Medicine & Health, Environment,
Business School, and Lifelong Learning Centre; Dorka: Arts, Humanities & Cultures, Biological
Sciences, Engineering & Physical Sciences, Interdisciplinary Research, and Special Collections)
3) identify potential case studies (e.g. specific researchers, projects, services/structures at
the university)
4) Alongside this we drew up an extensive list of potential questions/areas of inquiry,(both on
specific OR practises and OR generally as a concept) to inform questionnaires for semi-
structured interviews
5) reach out to people, provide an information sheet detailing our project and a consent form
to sign
4. 5) arrange 1-hr interview slots on Teams
6) store the data securely and do transcription
7) plan and draw up the case studies on MS Sway based on interviewee responses
8) send case studies for review/approval to each participant
9) make necessary revisions
5. Case study examples
Jiren Xu and the PEATMAP:
https://sway.office.com/P2rMqYSCx8oVGIrD?ref=Link
Kelly Llyod, PhD candidate in Health:
https://sway.office.com/7QWhGcEDhfZuAH4r?ref=Link
6. Some key findings
OR can mean different things to different people (e.g. disciplines, qualitative or quantitative-based)
There does still seem to be a greater presence and engagement with numerous OR practises in STEM,
compared to others like the Social Sciences
The key elements associated with open research as a whole are usually based on the view that it means the
research process (e.g. methods) should be open and transparent
The dissemination of the results (e.g. papers produced, releasing of findings, the actual data, etc.) should be
openly accessible for all (not just academics), for people to read and interpret for themselves
7. OR awareness has increased over recent years but many felt more needed doing in
their respective disciplines to bring it to the fore more.
In particular, most felt more training in how to engage with the various OR practises
would be of great help
OR is such a vast area encompassing loads of different practises, with different
meanings to different people
8. Experiences in conducting the case studies:
Overall, done quite well
Good spread across the disciplines
Some challenges:
Some schools/disciplines were easier to access than others
My own limits – I’m not an expert in OR
It’s been a learning process for us in itself
Experimental nature of this project (i.e. not done before at Leeds)
Occasional technical issues with doing all the interviews remotely
9. What I have gained from the experience
Expanded my knowledge of OR conceptually and the various practises
associated with it
Going forward I’m hopefully in a better position to adopt OR practises in my
own future research
Interesting and refreshing to hear about what ‘research’ means to different
researchers from different disciplines and how they do it