Liu et al. | Open Applied Linguistics: Towards a Culture of Open Scholarship in Applied Linguistics

In the past few years, the momentum for open scholarship has been rapidly growing in applied linguistics (Liu, 2023; Liu et al., 2023). Despite the commendable initiatives and endeavors by active proponents of open scholarship, the wider community of applied linguistics has yet to engage with open scholarship in greater depth (Marsden & Morgan‐Short, 2023). More efforts are still needed to increase the awareness of open scholarship and to facilitate discussions and collaborations to address issues ranging from research quality to accessibility and inclusion. In response to this, Open Applied Linguistics (openappliedlinguistics.org), a field-specific community initiative dedicated to promoting open scholarship, was proposed and formally approved by AILA as a Research Network (ReN) in February 2022. As a field-specific open scholarship community, Open Applied Linguistics has a unique role to play in fostering a shared understanding of open scholarship that reflects the unique values, epistemologies, and priorities of the field, thereby contextualizing open scholarship to truly serve the needs of the applied linguistics community.

We start our presentation with an overview of our objectives and current priorities. Our ultimate goal is to help advance the field of applied linguistics towards a robust and sustainable culture of open scholarship. Our current priorities are a) raising awareness of open scholarship, b) promoting an inclusive understanding of open scholarship, and c) lowering the barriers to entry into open scholarship in the field. We then review our past and ongoing activities in relation to these priorities, ranging from our inaugural two-day symposium to our Reading Club and Research Library initiatives. We will then reflect on the lessons learned and the challenges we have faced as a community initiative advocating open scholarship. Finally, we will conclude our presentation by outlining our future plans and presenting opportunities for wider engagement and collaboration in our field and beyond.