Open Research practices for linguistics

Stefano Coretta

University of Edinburgh

2026-04-30





Research

“A crisis of confidence?” Pashler and Wagenmakers (2012)



Research crises


Part of the polycrisis Morin and Kern (1999); Tooze (2023).

Research reliability

From The Turing Way.

Research reliability

From The Turing Way.

SOUND

Open Research

What is it?

Open Research is a movement that stresses the importance of a more honest and transparent research by promoting a series of research principles and by warning about common, although not necessarily intentional, questionable practices and misconceptions.

Munafò et al. (2017), Crüwell et al. (2019), Casillas et al. (2025)

How to make your research open?

  • Share Research compendia.

  • Write Registered Reports.

  • Reflect on your researcher’s orientation.

Research compendium

A research compendium accompanies, enhances, or is a scientific publication providing data, code, and documentation for reproducing a scientific workflow.

—Research compendium

A research compendium is a collection of all digital parts of a research project including data, code, texts (protocols, reports, questionnaires, meta data). The collection is created in such a way that reproducing all results is straightforward.

—The Turing Way: Research compendia

Research compendium

Research Compendium

A research compendium is a repository containing all materials, code, notebooks, images, data, metadata, manuscripts, etc of a project. A compendium is structured in a way that makes the research process transparent and reproducible.

  • Ideally, use a single main folder.
  • Organise files and folders inside according to type and context: separate data, code, images.
  • Separate raw and derived data.
  • Use as much automation as possible.
  • Document everything (for example with READMEs).

Research compendium: bad example

Research compendium: good example

Sharing research compendia

Licensing

Pick a license

  • Creative Commons is a commonly chosen license: https://creativecommons.org/chooser/

  • Other licenses (for software): MIT License, GNU license.

  • Always include a LICENSE file in your compendium and be explicit which parts of the compendium fall under which license.

Registered Reports

Registered Reports

Registered Reports: positive results

From Scheel et al. (2021).

Registered Reports: not killing the vibe

From Soderberg et al. (2021).

Registered Reports: resources

Research is not done in a vacuum. Knowledge is contextual.

Researcher’s orientation

Reflexive understanding of one’s own individual aspects and how they shape one’s own approach to and practice of research.


Not limited to: identity, lived experiences, social positionality, philosophical stance, personal beliefs, methodological theory, and more.

Researcher’s orientation: resources

Positionality

  • Darwin Holmes (2020), Goundar (2025) for qualitative research.

  • Jafar (2018), Lazard and McAvoy (2020) for quantitative research.

Philosophical stance

  • Okasha (2016), Rosenberg and Mclntyre (2020)

  • Tomlinson (2023), Castanelli (2024) for PhD/ECRs.

Summary

Open Research

  • Transparency and reliability of results (reproducible, replicable, robust, generalisable).

  • Curate and share research compendia (with license).

  • Publish Registered Reports.

  • Think about your researcher’s orientation.

References

Casillas, Joseph V., Gabriela Constantin-Dureci, Iván Andreu Rascón, et al. 2025. “Opening Open Science to All: Demystifying Reproducibility and Transparency Practices in Linguistic Research.” Linguistics, ahead of print. https://doi.org/doi:10.1515/ling-2023-0249.
Castanelli, Damian. 2024. “Developing Your Philosophical Stance as a PhD Student: A Case Study.” Focus on Health Professional Education: A Multi-Professional Journal 25 (2): 130–43. https://doi.org/10.11157/fohpe.v25i2.831.
Chambers, Christopher D., and Loukia Tzavella. 2021. “The Past, Present and Future of Registered Reports.” Nature Human Behaviour 6 (1): 29–42. https://doi.org/10.1038/s41562-021-01193-7.
Crüwell, Sophia, Johnny van Doorn, Alexander Etz, et al. 2019. “Seven Easy Steps to Open Science: An Annotated Reading List.” Zeitschrift Für Psychologie 227 (4): 237248. https://doi.org/10.1027/2151-2604/a000387.
Darwin Holmes, Andrew Gary. 2020. “Researcher Positionality: A Consideration of Its Influence and Place in Qualitative Research. A New Researcher Guide.” Shanlax International Journal of Education 8 (4): 110. https://doi.org/10.34293/education.v8i4.3232.
Goundar, Prashneel Ravisan. 2025. “Researcher Positionality: Ways to Include It in a Qualitative Research Design.” International Journal of Qualitative Methods 24 (March): 16094069251321251. https://doi.org/10.1177/16094069251321251.
Jafar, Anisa J. N. 2018. “What Is Positionality and Should It Be Expressed in Quantitative Studies?” Emergency Medicine Journal, ahead of print. https://doi.org/10.1136/emermed-2017-207158.
Karhulahti, Veli-Matti. 2022. “Registered Reports for Qualitative Research.” Nature Human Behaviour 6 (1): 45. https://doi.org/10.1038/s41562-021-01265-8.
Karhulahti, Veli-Matti, Peter Branney, Miia Siutila, and Moin Syed. 2023. “A Primer for Choosing, Designing and Evaluating Registered Reports for Qualitative Methods.” Open Research Europe 3: 22. https://doi.org/10.12688/openreseurope.15532.2.
Lazard, Lisa, and Jean McAvoy. 2020. “Doing Reflexivity in Psychological Research: What’s the Point? What’s the Practice?” Qualitative Research in Psychology 17 (2): 159–77. https://doi.org/10.1080/14780887.2017.1400144.
Morin, Edgar, and Anne Brigitte Kern. 1999. Homeland earth: a manifesto for the new millenium. Advances in systems theory, complexity, and the human sciences. Hampton Press.
Munafò, Marcus R., Brian A. Nosek, Dorothy V. M. Bishop, et al. 2017. “A Manifesto for Reproducible Science.” Nature Human Behaviour 1 (1): 21. https://doi.org/10.1038/s41562-016-0021.
Okasha, Samir. 2016. Philosophy of Science: Very Short Introduction. Oxford: Oxford University Press. https://doi.org/10.1093/actrade/9780192802835.001.0001.
Pashler, Harold, and Eric-Jan Wagenmakers. 2012. “Editors’ Introduction to the Special Section on Replicability in Psychological Science: A Crisis of Confidence?” Perspectives on Psychological Science 7 (6): 528530. https://doi.org/10.1177/1745691612465253.
Rosenberg, Alexander, and Lee Mclntyre. 2020. Philosophy of science: a contemporary introduction. Fourth edition. Routledge contemporary introductions to philosophy. Routledge.
Scheel, Anne M., Mitchell R. M. J. Schijen, and Daniël Lakens. 2021. “An Excess of Positive Results: Comparing the Standard Psychology Literature with Registered Reports.” Advances in Methods and Practices in Psychological Science 4 (2): 25152459211007467. https://doi.org/10.1177/25152459211007467.
Soderberg, Courtney K., Timothy M. Errington, Sarah R. Schiavone, et al. 2021. “Initial Evidence of Research Quality of Registered Reports Compared with the Standard Publishing Model.” Nature Human Behaviour 5 (8): 990–97. https://doi.org/10.1038/s41562-021-01142-4.
Tomlinson, Yalda Natasha. 2023. The Importance of Engaging with Ontology and Epistemology as an ECR. https://www.bps.org.uk/psychologist/importance-engaging-ontology-and-epistemology-ecr.
Tooze, Adam. 2023. “Welcome to the World of the Polycrisis.” Financial Times 28 (10). https://www.ft.com/content/498398e7-11b1-494b-9cd3-6d669dc3de33.