Glossary version 0.1

Introduction

In the last decade, the Open Science movement has introduced and modified many research practices. The breadth of these initiatives can be overwhelming, and digestible introductions to these topics are valuable (e.g. Crüwell et al. 2019; Kathawalla, Silverstein, & Syed, 2020). Creating a shared understanding of the purposes of these initiatives facilitates discussions of the strengths and weaknesses of each practice, ultimately helping us work towards a research utopia (Nosek & Bar-Anan, 2012).

Accompanying this cultural shift towards increased transparency and rigour has been a wealth of terminology within the zeitgeist of research practice and culture. For those unfamiliar, the new nomenclature can be a barrier to follow and join the discussions; for those familiar, potentially vague or competing definitions can cause confusion and misunderstandings. For example, even the “classic” 2015 paper “Estimating the reproducibility of psychological science” (Open Science Collaboration, 2015) can be argued to assess the replicability of research findings.

In order to reduce barriers to entry and understanding, we present a Glossary of terms relating to open scholarship. We aim that the glossary will help clarify terminologies, including where terms are used differently/interchangeably or where terms are less known in some fields or among students. We also hope that this glossary will be a welcome resource for those new to these concepts, and that it helps grow their confidence in navigating discussions of open scholarship. We also hope that this glossary aids in mentoring and teaching, and allows newcomers and experts to communicate efficiently.

The list of terms we have drafted and reviewed can be found on the left if you are viewing this page on a computer screen or bigger, otherwise they can be found at the bottom of the page. If you hover a word, you will be able to read the full description of the term. To know more about a term, including references, simply click on it and it will bring you to the term page.

Project Status

We successfully arrived at the end of Phase 1 🎉🥳

This means we managed to go from an ambitious idea to a full blown crowd-sourced project in which more than 110 collaborators defined via consensus after much discussion and reviewed upwards of 250 Open Scholarship terms. We also prepared a manuscript which is currently submitted where all contributors are co-authors.

Importantly, we are preparing for Phase 2 where FORRT will again open every term for discussion, suggestions, and editing aiming at the improvement of existing definitions, extension the scope of terms, and translation to other languages to increase access. We are trying to set everything up as we already broke google-docs. So we are considering several options to maximize (and facilitate) discussion and exchanges. If you have ideas, please contact us. Instructions will follow soon in this page.

To receive updates please join FORRT’s Slack channel. You can also contact FORRT, and project leads Sam Parsons and Flávio Azevedo. For information on Phase 1 of FORRT’s Glossary Project, see below.

Link to the FORRT preprint explaining Phase 1

“A Community-Sourced Glossary of Open Scholarship Terms”

Expand to learn more about details of the Phase 1

Phase 1 - from an ambitious idea to a crowd-sourced project

Phase 1 had three parts, A, B, and C. Below you find the explanations of each of them and the instructions given to the contributors.

Part A

Project methods and guidelines

Concept

At the start of Phase 1, the lead writing team developed the overall project concept, including the first version of the Glossary skeleton outlining how we would like to proceed with facilitating and recognizing contributions from the community.

Through this process, the community-driven glossary development procedure deliberately centred the Open Scholarship ethos of accessibility, diversity, equity, and inclusion. And hence, we aimed to capture the wide scope of Open Scholarship, including terms related to education, diversity, equity, and inclusivity.

The sentence below, by one of our members, captures the ethos of this project.

Hey there world, we are doing this glossary thing hoping it is useful. We hope we got most things right, but please let us know when we didn’t and how to improve it (we expect there’s lots to improve, hence a Phase 2). And please be mindful that our goal isn’t to provide definitive definitions but rather create an educational resource aiming at decreasing the burden of educators trying to integrate open and reproducible principles into their teaching as well as increasing accessibility to niche knowledge about Open Scholarship.

The Definitions

Each entry (or term) should follow a standard format (provided below). The definitions should be concise, ideally no more than three or four sentences, using non-technical language (as much as possible). They must also contain enough information to be useful. Please include supporting information (e.g., citations) for an appropriate reference that gives more detail or an example of the term in practice. If possible, please add the APA formatted reference to the references section –or provide enough information for one of the lead writing team to find it (e.g., the page number being quoted from).

Where there are several, potentially competing definitions for a term (e.g. some fields use reproducibility and replicability in opposing ways), please enter this as an alternative definition. Alternative definitions should be distinct in some way, and not rephrasing of other definitions. Where there are alternative definitions, it would be maximally beneficial to include a reference for all possible definitions: remember that the goal is to educate on existing terms rather than asserting authority about what is the correct definition.

Community contributions

In this phase we aim to populate the glossary section. We will share an open invite for contributions via the FORRT community and social media. We invite all interested to: write definitions, comment on existing definitions, add alternative definitions where applicable, and suggest relevant references. If you feel that key terms are missing, please add it - you can let us know, or ask contact us with suggestions in the FORRT slack or email sam.parsons@psy.ox.ac.uk and flavio.azevedo@uni-jena.de. Once all terms have been added, the lead writing team (Parsons, Azevedo, & Elsherif) will develop an abridged version to submit as a manuscript. We outline the kinds of contributions and their correspondence to authorship in more detail in the next section. Don’t forget to add your name and details to the contributions spreadsheet.

Manuscript development and submission

There are two outputs for this project. First, the entire glossary will appear on the FORRT website. Second, an abridged version will be submitted for publication. The lead writing team will handle the overall manuscript development, project administration, formatting, etc. For the manuscript submission, the lead writing team will be considered joint first authors. A final version will be shared so that all contributors have the chance to check that they are happy with the final version of the manuscript.

Contributions and Authorship

In this project we will use the CREDIT taxonomy ( https://casrai.org/credit/) in this prepared contributors spreadsheet. Please add your details (including ORCID) and contributions as you make them. This will facilitate the development of this project, allow us to easily communicate with all contributors, and ensure that all contributions are recognized.

Every few days, one of the team will review this document to finalize definitions that have had sufficient input.

We invite several specific contributions: original draft preparation, and review & editing. To help decide what contributions to select, please refer to these outlines. Please add your details to the contributor spreadsheet as you make any contributions. This will also allow us to contact you as we enter later stages of the manuscript development. It is important to note that it is not our aim to distinguish these contributions in terms of prestige. If you are uncertain, please contact one of the lead writing team members.

Writing | Original Draft Preparation: We consider this contribution as, for example, writing at least one full glossary entry. If you wrote the original draft for an entry, please add your name to the “Drafted by” field and be sure to tick the “Original Draft Preparation” checkbox in the contributors spreadsheet.
Writing | Review & Editing: We consider this contribution as, for example, providing constructive comments, feedback, and approval, on more than 5 glossary entries (we acknowledge that towards the end of the project the main contribution will be checking definitions for agreement and so it may be difficult for some people to make large writing contributions. Please remember to add your name to the “Reviewed by” field and be sure to tick the “Review & Editing” checkbox in the contributors spreadsheet.

Template & Example

Term: XXX

Definition: XXX

Related terms: XXX

Alternative definition: (if applicable)

Related terms to alternative definition: (if applicable)

Reference(s): XXX

Drafted by: XXX

Reviewed (or Edited) by: XXX; XXX; XXX

Term: CRediT

Definition: The Contributor Roles Taxonomy (CRediT; https://casrai.org/credit/) is a high-level taxonomy, including 14 roles, that can be used to indicate the roles typically adopted by contributors to scientific scholarly output. The roles describe each contributor’s specific contribution to the scholarly output. They can be assigned multiple times to different authors and one author can also be assigned multiple roles. CRediT includes the following roles: Conceptualization, Data curation, Formal Analysis, Funding acquisition, Investigation, Methodology, Project administration, Resources, Software, Supervision, Validation, Visualization, Writing – original draft, Writing – review & editing. A description of the different roles can be found in the work of Brand et al., (2015).
Related terms: Authorship
Alternative definition: (if applicable)
Related terms to alternative definition: (if applicable)
Reference(s): Brand et al. (2015); Holcombe (2019); https://casrai.org/credit/
Drafted by: Sam Parsons
Reviewed (or Edited) by: Myriam A. Baum; Matt Jaquiery; Connor Keating; Yuki Yamada

Part B

We completely filled the original G-doc with comments and so have moved the project into two fresh documents (retaining your open comments, but not the resolved ones). Please see the links below to keep discussing and working on the terms. Both documents contain all instructions for contributors/authors. If you have any trouble, please contact sam.parsons@psy.ox.ac.uk or flavio.azevedo@uni-jena.de or check on the FORRT Slack channel.

This was unplanned, we didn’t know G-docs had a limit.

Part C

We are now working on our manuscript as well as its implementation in FORRT’s website.

Editorial advice was given to us and it suggested us to choose 50 items to go into a ‘box’ (a sort of a table that doesn’t have word limits). However, it is of fundamental importance to note that these 50 terms are not the community’s conception —or leading authors’— of ‘main’ terms, or ‘core’ terms, or ‘most important terms’. We tried as much as possible —and in line with FORRT’s mission, FORRT’s Code of Conduct, and FORRT’s Manuscript— to choose items that give representation to a variety of past, present and future issue of Open Scholarship. The chosen 50 terms reflect the diversity and plurality of terms for the broader OS, not only for this or that discipline, or this or that view of what Open Scholarship is. Now, that’s not to say these 50 comprise a perfect list. It is not, and we are bound to disagree on which terms should have made the list and which shouldn’t have. And that’s both normal and OK 😊

After the manuscript’s submission and the display of defined terms in FORRT’s Glossary webpage, we will proceed to Phase 2, which aims to improve upon existing definitions, extend the scope of terms defined, and translate it to other languages to increase access.

Feedback

Would you like to give feedback, help us review terms, or add terms? You can do so by watching this space, joining FORRT’s Slack channel, contacting FORRT, or contacting project leads Sam Parsons and Flávio Azevedo.

Last updated on Oct 15, 2024