Recent initiatives towards open science in communication have prompted vigorous debate. While gesturing to qualitative research, much of open science does not engage with the constructionist research paradigms from which many qualitative researchers draw (e.g. Dienlin et al, 2020; one thoughtful exception is Haven & Von Grootel, 2019). Nevertheless, shared standards and criteria exist for conducting trustworthy qualitative research (e.g. Lincoln & Guba, 1985). In this presentation, we draw on qualitative and interpretive research methods to expand the key priorities that the open science framework addresses, namely producing trustworthy and quality research. Furthermore, we articulate a general set of principles that can encompass a wide range of epistemologies and methodologies that foster trust and intellectual expansiveness. Qualitative research has demanded reflexive approaches to knowledge building (positionality, partial knowledge, and attempts to offset implicit bias, for example, see Denzin & Lincoln, 2000). Qualitative methods can help deductive scholars embrace the contextual and the reflexive nature necessary for rigorous and inclusive research (Davis, 2014; Sefa Dei, 2005). To be successful, the open science movement will need to engage with the breadth of epistemological, methodological, and ethical traditions that co-exist in the social sciences. It will need to wrestle with the hierarchy of knowledge production and the disparate impacts of that hierarchy in scientific evaluation and rewards (Nosek, Spies, & Motyl, 2012). It will also need to resist the pressure to endlessly publish (Nelson, Simmons, & Simonsohn, 2012) novel and transformative studies (Davis, 1971), since that pressure hinders efforts to build cumulative knowledge (Forscher, 1963; Lewis, 2020). We understand that these are difficult challenges to address, but these issues that must be resolved for research to be truly open and inclusive, now, and in the future.

OSF Meeting site where slides are posted: https://osf.io/meetings/CDOD21/