NW 12: Transfer and Open Science. Forward thinking in research, practice, and infrastructure

Network
NW 12 Open Research on Education

Title
Transfer and Open Science. Forward thinking in research, practice, and infrastructure

Abstract
Knowledge transfer is a key issue in educational research, but how to effectively exchange research-generated knowledge in practice remains a challenge. Open Science and Open Educational Practices provide a framework to address this by promoting accessible, inclusive and collaborative scientific knowledge and fostering dialogue between communities of practice in education. It highlights the need to improve the way knowledge is organised, produced, communicated and disseminated. This raises questions about the conditions necessary for successful knowledge transfer, particularly in relation to Open Science, between individuals, organisations and policy-making processes.

The Call
The issue of knowledge transfer plays an important role in educational research. How knowledge can be transferred, whether in schools or in non-formal education settings, is a fundamental question in educational research that has been much debated in recent years and is still left open to a certain extend. The problem of using and transforming scientific knowledge in education, and thus bridging the gap between research and practice, is complex (Elizabeth Farley-Ripple et al 2018). The need to build bridges is often obvious (Rycroft‐Smith 2022). However, it is clear that knowledge cannot simply be transferred from one place to another, and thus from educational research to education or even to policy-making processes. The question arises as to what processes need to be undertaken on the sides of research, practice, and infrastructure, in order to facilitate better transfer. The concepts of open science and open educational practices might provide a solution that waits to be explored. With reference to the definition of the UNSECO ‘Recommendation on Open Science’, Open Science can be described as follows:

„open  science  is  defined  as  an  inclusive construct that combines various movements and practices aiming to  make  multilingual  scientific  knowledge  openly  available,  accessible  and  reusable  for  everyone,  to  increase  scientific  collaborations  and  sharing  of  information for the benefits of science and society, and to open the processes of scientific knowledge creation, evaluation and communication to societal actors beyond the traditional scientific community.“ (UNESCO 2021, S. 7)

The concept includes questions as how scientific knowledge can be found, how knowledge must be organised in order to have an impact, how scientific knowledge should be produced, including in terms of action research or citizen science, and how knowledge produced in science can and should be communicated and disseminated. It is not only about how scientific knowledge can be transformed, but also about the preconditions for knowledge transformation in terms of open science and open research. Questions can be asked at different levels, at the level of individuals (both scientists and practitioners), at the level of organisations (universities as places of knowledge production, but also educational institutions as ‚users‘ of knowledge as well as intermediaries organization, individuals, platforms, that connect different educational communities), and at the level of policys (in terms of how educational research can communicate with policy makers, or how open science policies affect educational research itself).     

Against this background, Network 12 invites you to submit contributions that deal with these topics or have interfaces to these topics. The following thematic suggestions/keywords in the context of educational research can be taken up:

research utilization, transfer of knowledge, scholarly communication, knowledge organisation, collaborative Research, evidence-based policy, Open research practice, knowledge mobilization,  intermediaries in transfer, open infrastructure for transfer  ……

Contact Person(s)

• Tamara Diederichs diederichs(at)uni-koblenz.de
• Sigrid Fahrer s.fahrer(at)dipf.de
• Marie Gaussel marie.gaussel(at)ens-lyon.fr
• Loredana Manasia loredana.manasia(at)mcid.gov.ro

References
Farley-Ripple, Elizabeth; May, Henry; Karpyn, Allison; Tilley, Katherine; McDonough, Kalyn (2018): Rethinking Connections Between Research and Practice in Education: A Conceptual Framework. In: Educational Researcher 47 (4), S. 235–245. DOI: 10.3102/0013189X18761042.

Rycroft‐Smith, Lucy (2022): Knowledge brokering to bridge the research‐practice gap in education: Where are we now? In: Review of Education 10 (1), Artikel e3341. DOI: 10.1002/rev3.3341.

UNESCO (2019): Recommendation on Open Educational Resources (OER). Online verfügbar unter unesdoc.unesco.org/ark:/48223/pf0000373755/PDF/373755eng.pdf.multi.page¼3.