CHAPTER ONE One Term, Many Meanings Interpreting Openness in Scholarship Open scholarship does not necessarily lead a steady march toward one truth or vision. —Daniels and Thistlethwaite (2016, 75) Open scholarship (or open science1 as it is sometimes called) is a term that most researchers have heard of but they are not entirely sure what it means. Open scholarship is both a concept and a practice, and the assumptions about it vary depending on the context in which openness is discussed. Even the word “open” is a vaguely defined term. As Morozov (2013) states, “[f]ew words in the English language pack as much ambigu- ity and sexiness as ‘open’ […]. Open could […] mean virtually anything.” In a similar fashion, Watters (2014) writes that the word “open” can mean many things depending on who is using the word. She argues that while such “multivalence” can be a strength, it can also be a weakness “when the term becomes so widely applied that it is rendered meaningless.” Weller (2014, 28) echoes this sentiment by saying that a multitude of interpretations of the word “openness” is “both its blessing and curse,” as it is “broad enough to be adopted widely, but also loose enough that any- one can claim it, so it becomes meaningless.”2 Openness in scholarship has been interpreted in many ways, including the following interpretations. Openness as Transparency Openness as transparency (as the opposite of secrecy) refers to a new way of conducting research that entails “freedom of access by all
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