A How-To Guide for Open-Science Practices in Special Education Research.

Open-science reforms, which aim to increase credibility and access of research, have the potential to benefit the research base in special education, as well as practice and policy informed by that research base. Awareness of open science is increasing among special education researchers. However, relatively few researchers in the field have experience using multiple open-science practices, and few practical guidelines or resources have been tailored to special education researchers to support their exploration and adoption of open science. In this paper, we described and provided guidelines and resources for applying five core open-science practices-preregistration, registered reports, data sharing, materials sharing, and open-access publishing-in special education research.

Open Accessibility in Education Research: Enhancing the Credibility, Equity, Impact, and Efficiency of Research.

Openness is a foundational principle in science. Making the tools and products of scientific research openly accessible advances core aims and values of education researchers, such as the credibility, equity, impact, and efficiency of research. The digital revolution has expanded opportunities for providing greater access to research. In this article, we examine three open-science practices-open data and code, open materials, and open access-that education researchers can use to increase accessibility to the tools and products of research in the field. For each open-science practice, we discuss what the practice is and how it works, its primary benefits, some important limitations and challenges, and two thorny issues.