We are excited to announce that our proposal for a symposium at BAAL 2023 has been accepted! Please consider joining us by submitting an abstract! Details of our symposium can be found below and we look forward to seeing you at BAAL 2023!
Title of symposium
Towards accessible applied linguistics research: open access and beyond
Symposium chairs
Meng Liu (ml858@cantab.ac.uk)
Sin Wang Chong (sinwang.chong@ed.ac.uk)
Abstract
According to UNESCO’s (2021) recommendation on open science, one of the central aims of open science is to “make multilingual scientific knowledge openly available, accessible and reusable for everyone” (p.7). This points to accessibility as a key concept underpinning the move towards more open and transparent research. The benefits of accessible research range from expanding the reach of knowledge and ideas to expediting the cumulative process of research (UNESCO, 2021). For applied linguists, a meaningful question that follows is how do we make applied linguistics research (more) accessible?
A quick scan of the field reveals several initiatives aiming to promote research accessibility. For instance, IRIS aims to promote the sharing and reuse of research data and materials; the Postprint Pledge endeavours to promote open access publishing of accepted manuscripts. Both initiatives focus on enhancing research accessibility in the physical sense. There have also been efforts that aim to enhance research accessibility in the intellectual sense: OASIS and TESOLgraphics aim to render research findings understandable to the wider public.
While these initiatives are actively contributing to greater accessibility, the notion of accessibility can be expanded in broader senses, beyond open access publishing of research outputs or resources. For instance, accessibility can be expanded to encompass the need for more inclusive research practices to widen participation among vulnerable or marginalised populations. It may also be expanded to include accessibility of the publication process, including alternative models such as open and collaborative peer review. Our symposium aims to explore accessibility as a complex and multidimensional concept and further unpack it in the applied linguistics context. We welcome diverse contributions, both theoretical and empirical, on topics from innovative models of open access publishing to new ways of engaging with the notion of accessibility to promote more accessible applied linguistics research.
Keywords
Open access, research accessibility, open peer review, participatory research, crowd-sourced science
The area of Applied Linguistics we address
Our symposium addresses open applied linguistics research from a general perspective, with no constraints on the substantive areas of research: for instance, open access publishing can be discussed in terms of applied linguistics research in general (e.g., an applied linguistics OA journal) or a specific area of research (e.g., the accessibility of corpus linguistics research)
How to contribute
IMPORTANT
If you are interested in contributing to our symposium, please make sure to submit an abstract for your presentation by Friday 17th March 2023 via the official BAAL 2023 conference website (i.e., submissions cannot be emailed to us directly). The submission platform will open on the BAAL 2023 conference website on Monday 30th January 2023 (please find key dates here).
The review process
Our symposium chairs and a member of the Local Organising Committee or the BAAL Executive will review the proposals submitted to our symposium. Based on these reviews, we will then select presentations for inclusion. Having approved our selection, the Local Organising Committee will notify presenters.
If there is anything unclear or if you have any questions, please feel free to reach out to us open-al@outlook.com. We are happy to help in any way we can.
