July 2025

At its June meeting, AERA Council unanimously approved the establishment of a new Special Interest Group (SIG) on Open Scholarship. The new SIG seeks to highlight research on open scholarship, investigate best practices in implementing open scholarship practices in education, develop new mechanisms for implementing open scholarship principles in education research and practice, and promote open scholarship practices in education research.

Petitions for the formation of new SIGs are first reviewed by the AERA SIG Executive Committee before being advanced to AERA Council for approval. In its review, the SIG Executive Committee found the Open Scholarship petition to be well-developed with convincing rationale, and the committee advanced the petition to Council with a unanimous recommendation for approval.  

The petitioners provided the following description of the new SIG-in-formation:

The Open Scholarship SIG focuses on increasing the practice of open scholarship (e.g., data sharing, open access publishing, sharing materials, replication of prior research) in education research. Open scholarship practices seek to increase access to research products/materials, transparency of research practices, and the reproducibility/rigor of research. These goals help research become more trustworthy and more accessible to all, no matter their background, nation of origin, or where they reside.

“I am very happy to see the approval of this important new SIG,” stated Executive Director Felice Levine. "AERA supports the premises, value-propositions and principles of open scholarship, and recognizes the impact of open access and open inquiry on a range of issues from building incremental knowledge, to expanding linkages to related knowledge worldwide, to enhancing public trust in science."

Individuals joining AERA and members renewing their AERA membership may join the SIG, or any other SIG, when they join or renew. Any current AERA member also can add additional SIGs to their membership at any time by going to their “My AERA” page and using the “Purchase Additional SIG Memberships” option to add one or more SIGs to their current AERA membership.