Open science/scholarship describes a wide range of various scholarly practices that aim to make every step of the research process as accessible and transparent as possible, meaning to "open it up" to the academic and non-academic community in promoting an attainable production and dissemination of knowledge. Striving for "openness", scholars work on making their research data available for subsequent use in different research projects, and publishing research results open access. This goal is also sought to be achieved by developing research questions together with affected communities and citizens, and by collecting, evaluating and interpreting data in participatory processes.
In film studies, too, there have long been efforts to work in the spirit of open scholarship. Media studies repositories such as the German media/rep/ or the international MediArXiv seek to help disseminate and find publications; the Scholarly lnterest Group Open Media Studies of the German Society for Media Studies was founded in 2018 to conceptualize, raise awareness for, and experiment with open scholarship; the new initiative NFDl4Culture is intended for making research data available in transdisciplinary contexts, and more and more publishers are embarking on open access strategies - to name just a few examples.
However, as an academic discipline, film studies face particular challenges in arguably "opening up" its research processes. The very fact that film studies work relies on (commercial) moving images and stills often prevents research data from being published freely. For many researchers, open access publishing still raises questions in terms of aesthetics and economic, social, legal, cultural and technical infrastructures. There is also still very little experience in open peer review procedures, and "citizen research" is by no means part of the repertoire. All in all, there is still room for discussions and further initiatives in the practical, methodological, infrastructural and habitual implementation of this new "openness".
The aim of this workshop is to discuss current developments in open scholarship by presenting a number of different approaches by film studies scholars, including current publishing platforms and research practices often struggling with transitions from one paradigm to the next. The workshop will discuss the following questions related to open science/open scholarship: How did film studies begin to "open" up? How does the publication of monographs in open access relate to existing publishing traditions in (German-language) film studies? Which aesthetic dimensions and discipline-specific features must be taken into account in open access publishing? How do preprints and blogs contribute to open scholarship? How can "open data'' look like in film studies and how can it be collected and evaluated in participatory processes?
Finally, we want to discuss how we can expand existing networks and foster communication about and for our respective research: How can open scholarship/science also be about creating a productive and critical forum for scholarly ideas and practices?
The workshop is a collaboration of Cinepoetics - Center for Advanced Film Studies and the Scholarly Interest Group Open Media Studies of the German Society for Media Studies (GfM).
The one-day event is intended as an impulse and exchange of perspectives. While it cannot deal with the manifold dimensions of the topic in an exhaustive manner, it is nevertheless meant to provide inspiration for further discussions. The workshop speakers will give 15-minute inputs (in English), followed by 15 minutes of discussion. At the end of the workshop, 30 minutes are scheduled for further exchange. Questions can be asked in English and German via chat and will be brought into the discussion by the moderators. In their effort to bring together multiple perspectives on the workshop's theme, the organizers are also delighted to welcome independent scholar and filmmaker Catherine Grant, one of the first movers towards "openness", as a speaker. Further impulses will come from the organizers of the workshop, who will draw on their personal experience with open access, open data and citizen research.
lf you are interested in participating, please register until January 15th via email to michael.ufer(at)fuberlin.de.
Until this date, please also fill out the short questionnaire provided:
https://PollEv.com/surveyshzwkf5CEmBj57zlljlHzC/respond*
The questionnaire will help us to identify areas of interest and focus points for the discussion.
*Please note:
- You will have to dick "Next" in the bottom right corner after answering a question
- The note "You can respond 10 times. Each option may only be selected once", which appears with every question and is a default of PollEv.com, only applies to (the 8 possible responses to) question number 6 and is irrelevant for the other questions
The workshop will take place online via ZOOM. The link to the ZOOM meeting and more information about technical requirements will reach you in time.