and related terms
Video: Search by Themes (YouTube)
(2 min 40 sec) Recorded April 2014 Transcript
Most research articles will identify where more research is needed. To identify research trends, use the literature review matrix to track where further research is needed.
There is no consistent section in research articles where the authors identify where more research is needed. Pay attention to these sections:
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A literature review is a critical analysis and synthesis of existing research on a particular topic. It provides an overview of the current state of knowledge, identifies gaps, and highlights key findings in the literature. 1 The purpose of a literature review is to situate your own research within the context of existing scholarship, demonstrating your understanding of the topic and showing how your work contributes to the ongoing conversation in the field. Learning how to write a literature review is a critical tool for successful research. Your ability to summarize and synthesize prior research pertaining to a certain topic demonstrates your grasp on the topic of study, and assists in the learning process.
What is the purpose of literature review , a. habitat loss and species extinction: , b. range shifts and phenological changes: , c. ocean acidification and coral reefs: , d. adaptive strategies and conservation efforts: .
What is a literature review .
A well-conducted literature review demonstrates the researcher’s familiarity with the existing literature, establishes the context for their own research, and contributes to scholarly conversations on the topic. One of the purposes of a literature review is also to help researchers avoid duplicating previous work and ensure that their research is informed by and builds upon the existing body of knowledge.
A literature review serves several important purposes within academic and research contexts. Here are some key objectives and functions of a literature review: 2
1. Contextualizing the Research Problem: The literature review provides a background and context for the research problem under investigation. It helps to situate the study within the existing body of knowledge.
2. Identifying Gaps in Knowledge: By identifying gaps, contradictions, or areas requiring further research, the researcher can shape the research question and justify the significance of the study. This is crucial for ensuring that the new research contributes something novel to the field.
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3. Understanding Theoretical and Conceptual Frameworks: Literature reviews help researchers gain an understanding of the theoretical and conceptual frameworks used in previous studies. This aids in the development of a theoretical framework for the current research.
4. Providing Methodological Insights: Another purpose of literature reviews is that it allows researchers to learn about the methodologies employed in previous studies. This can help in choosing appropriate research methods for the current study and avoiding pitfalls that others may have encountered.
5. Establishing Credibility: A well-conducted literature review demonstrates the researcher’s familiarity with existing scholarship, establishing their credibility and expertise in the field. It also helps in building a solid foundation for the new research.
6. Informing Hypotheses or Research Questions: The literature review guides the formulation of hypotheses or research questions by highlighting relevant findings and areas of uncertainty in existing literature.
Let’s delve deeper with a literature review example: Let’s say your literature review is about the impact of climate change on biodiversity. You might format your literature review into sections such as the effects of climate change on habitat loss and species extinction, phenological changes, and marine biodiversity. Each section would then summarize and analyze relevant studies in those areas, highlighting key findings and identifying gaps in the research. The review would conclude by emphasizing the need for further research on specific aspects of the relationship between climate change and biodiversity. The following literature review template provides a glimpse into the recommended literature review structure and content, demonstrating how research findings are organized around specific themes within a broader topic.
Climate change is a global phenomenon with far-reaching consequences, including significant impacts on biodiversity. This literature review synthesizes key findings from various studies:
Climate change-induced alterations in temperature and precipitation patterns contribute to habitat loss, affecting numerous species (Thomas et al., 2004). The review discusses how these changes increase the risk of extinction, particularly for species with specific habitat requirements.
Observations of range shifts and changes in the timing of biological events (phenology) are documented in response to changing climatic conditions (Parmesan & Yohe, 2003). These shifts affect ecosystems and may lead to mismatches between species and their resources.
The review explores the impact of climate change on marine biodiversity, emphasizing ocean acidification’s threat to coral reefs (Hoegh-Guldberg et al., 2007). Changes in pH levels negatively affect coral calcification, disrupting the delicate balance of marine ecosystems.
Recognizing the urgency of the situation, the literature review discusses various adaptive strategies adopted by species and conservation efforts aimed at mitigating the impacts of climate change on biodiversity (Hannah et al., 2007). It emphasizes the importance of interdisciplinary approaches for effective conservation planning.
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Writing a literature review involves summarizing and synthesizing existing research on a particular topic. A good literature review format should include the following elements.
Introduction: The introduction sets the stage for your literature review, providing context and introducing the main focus of your review.
Body: The body of the literature review is where you provide a comprehensive analysis of existing literature, grouping studies based on themes, methodologies, or other relevant criteria.
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Conclusion: The conclusion of your literature review should summarize the main findings, highlight the contributions of the review, and suggest avenues for future research.
Conducting a literature review is an essential step in research that involves reviewing and analyzing existing literature on a specific topic. It’s important to know how to do a literature review effectively, so here are the steps to follow: 1
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The literature review sample and detailed advice on writing and conducting a review will help you produce a well-structured report. But remember that a good literature review is an ongoing process, and it may be necessary to revisit and update it as your research progresses. By combining effortless research with an easy citation process, Paperpal Research streamlines the literature review process and empowers you to write faster and with more confidence. Try Paperpal Research now and see for yourself.
A literature review is a critical and comprehensive analysis of existing literature (published and unpublished works) on a specific topic or research question and provides a synthesis of the current state of knowledge in a particular field. A well-conducted literature review is crucial for researchers to build upon existing knowledge, avoid duplication of efforts, and contribute to the advancement of their field. It also helps researchers situate their work within a broader context and facilitates the development of a sound theoretical and conceptual framework for their studies.
Literature review is a crucial component of research writing, providing a solid background for a research paper’s investigation. The aim is to keep professionals up to date by providing an understanding of ongoing developments within a specific field, including research methods, and experimental techniques used in that field, and present that knowledge in the form of a written report. Also, the depth and breadth of the literature review emphasizes the credibility of the scholar in his or her field.
Before writing a literature review, it’s essential to undertake several preparatory steps to ensure that your review is well-researched, organized, and focused. This includes choosing a topic of general interest to you and doing exploratory research on that topic, writing an annotated bibliography, and noting major points, especially those that relate to the position you have taken on the topic.
Literature reviews and academic research papers are essential components of scholarly work but serve different purposes within the academic realm. 3 A literature review aims to provide a foundation for understanding the current state of research on a particular topic, identify gaps or controversies, and lay the groundwork for future research. Therefore, it draws heavily from existing academic sources, including books, journal articles, and other scholarly publications. In contrast, an academic research paper aims to present new knowledge, contribute to the academic discourse, and advance the understanding of a specific research question. Therefore, it involves a mix of existing literature (in the introduction and literature review sections) and original data or findings obtained through research methods.
Literature reviews are essential components of academic and research papers, and various strategies can be employed to conduct them effectively. If you want to know how to write a literature review for a research paper, here are four common approaches that are often used by researchers. Chronological Review: This strategy involves organizing the literature based on the chronological order of publication. It helps to trace the development of a topic over time, showing how ideas, theories, and research have evolved. Thematic Review: Thematic reviews focus on identifying and analyzing themes or topics that cut across different studies. Instead of organizing the literature chronologically, it is grouped by key themes or concepts, allowing for a comprehensive exploration of various aspects of the topic. Methodological Review: This strategy involves organizing the literature based on the research methods employed in different studies. It helps to highlight the strengths and weaknesses of various methodologies and allows the reader to evaluate the reliability and validity of the research findings. Theoretical Review: A theoretical review examines the literature based on the theoretical frameworks used in different studies. This approach helps to identify the key theories that have been applied to the topic and assess their contributions to the understanding of the subject. It’s important to note that these strategies are not mutually exclusive, and a literature review may combine elements of more than one approach. The choice of strategy depends on the research question, the nature of the literature available, and the goals of the review. Additionally, other strategies, such as integrative reviews or systematic reviews, may be employed depending on the specific requirements of the research.
The literature review format can vary depending on the specific publication guidelines. However, there are some common elements and structures that are often followed. Here is a general guideline for the format of a literature review: Introduction: Provide an overview of the topic. Define the scope and purpose of the literature review. State the research question or objective. Body: Organize the literature by themes, concepts, or chronology. Critically analyze and evaluate each source. Discuss the strengths and weaknesses of the studies. Highlight any methodological limitations or biases. Identify patterns, connections, or contradictions in the existing research. Conclusion: Summarize the key points discussed in the literature review. Highlight the research gap. Address the research question or objective stated in the introduction. Highlight the contributions of the review and suggest directions for future research.
Both annotated bibliographies and literature reviews involve the examination of scholarly sources. While annotated bibliographies focus on individual sources with brief annotations, literature reviews provide a more in-depth, integrated, and comprehensive analysis of existing literature on a specific topic. The key differences are as follows:
Annotated Bibliography | Literature Review | |
Purpose | List of citations of books, articles, and other sources with a brief description (annotation) of each source. | Comprehensive and critical analysis of existing literature on a specific topic. |
Focus | Summary and evaluation of each source, including its relevance, methodology, and key findings. | Provides an overview of the current state of knowledge on a particular subject and identifies gaps, trends, and patterns in existing literature. |
Structure | Each citation is followed by a concise paragraph (annotation) that describes the source’s content, methodology, and its contribution to the topic. | The literature review is organized thematically or chronologically and involves a synthesis of the findings from different sources to build a narrative or argument. |
Length | Typically 100-200 words | Length of literature review ranges from a few pages to several chapters |
Independence | Each source is treated separately, with less emphasis on synthesizing the information across sources. | The writer synthesizes information from multiple sources to present a cohesive overview of the topic. |
References
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What is a research gap.
A research gap is a question or a problem that has not been answered by any of the existing studies or research within your field. Sometimes, a research gap exists when there is a concept or new idea that hasn't been studied at all. Sometimes you'll find a research gap if all the existing research is outdated and in need of new/updated research (studies on Internet use in 2001, for example). Or, perhaps a specific population has not been well studied (perhaps there are plenty of studies on teenagers and video games, but not enough studies on toddlers and video games, for example). These are just a few examples, but any research gap you find is an area where more studies and more research need to be conducted. Please view this video clip from our Sage Research Methods database for more helpful information: How Do You Identify Gaps in Literature?
It will take a lot of research and reading. You'll need to be very familiar with all the studies that have already been done, and what those studies contributed to the overall body of knowledge about that topic. Make a list of any questions you have about your topic and then do some research to see if those questions have already been answered satisfactorily. If they haven't, perhaps you've discovered a gap! Here are some strategies you can use to make the most of your time:
Please give these suggestions a try and contact a librarian for additional assistance.
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Gaps in the literature.
Gaps in the literature are missing pieces or insufficient information in the published research on a topic. These are areas that have opportunities for further research because they are unexplored, under-explored, or outdated.
Gaps can be missing or incomplete:
Conduct a thorough literature search to find a broad range of research articles on your topic. Search research databases ; you can find recommended databases for your subject area in research by subject for your course or program.
If you do not find articles in your literature search, this may indicate a gap.
If you do find articles, the goal is to find a gap for contributing new research. Authors signal that there is a gap using phrases such as:
If you have questions on this, or another, topic, contact a librarian for help!
A literature review is an integrated analysis -- not just a summary-- of scholarly writings and other relevant evidence related directly to your research question. That is, it represents a synthesis of the evidence that provides background information on your topic and shows a association between the evidence and your research question.
A literature review may be a stand alone work or the introduction to a larger research paper, depending on the assignment. Rely heavily on the guidelines your instructor has given you.
Why is it important?
A literature review is important because it:
APA Style Blog - for those harder to find answers
Your literature review should be guided by your central research question. The literature represents background and research developments related to a specific research question, interpreted and analyzed by you in a synthesized way.
How many studies do you need to look at? How comprehensive should it be? How many years should it cover?
Make a list of the databases you will search.
Where to find databases:
Some questions to help you analyze the research:
Tips:
3 straightforward steps (with examples) + free template.
By: Derek Jansen (MBA) | Expert Reviewed By: Dr. Eunice Rautenbach | October 2019
Quality research is about building onto the existing work of others , “standing on the shoulders of giants”, as Newton put it. The literature review chapter of your dissertation, thesis or research project is where you synthesise this prior work and lay the theoretical foundation for your own research.
Long story short, this chapter is a pretty big deal, which is why you want to make sure you get it right . In this post, I’ll show you exactly how to write a literature review in three straightforward steps, so you can conquer this vital chapter (the smart way).
Before we unpack how to write the literature review chapter, we’ve got to look at the why . To put it bluntly, if you don’t understand the function and purpose of the literature review process, there’s no way you can pull it off well. So, what exactly is the purpose of the literature review?
Well, there are (at least) four core functions:
Most students understand the first point but don’t give any thought to the rest. To get the most from the literature review process, you must keep all four points front of mind as you review the literature (more on this shortly), or you’ll land up with a wonky foundation.
Okay – with the why out the way, let’s move on to the how . As mentioned above, writing your literature review is a process, which I’ll break down into three steps:
Importantly, you must complete steps one and two before you start writing up your chapter. I know it’s very tempting, but don’t try to kill two birds with one stone and write as you read. You’ll invariably end up wasting huge amounts of time re-writing and re-shaping, or you’ll just land up with a disjointed, hard-to-digest mess . Instead, you need to read first and distil the information, then plan and execute the writing.
Naturally, the first step in the literature review journey is to hunt down the existing research that’s relevant to your topic. While you probably already have a decent base of this from your research proposal , you need to expand on this substantially in the dissertation or thesis itself.
Essentially, you need to be looking for any existing literature that potentially helps you answer your research question (or develop it, if that’s not yet pinned down). There are numerous ways to find relevant literature, but I’ll cover my top four tactics here. I’d suggest combining all four methods to ensure that nothing slips past you:
Google’s academic search engine, Google Scholar , is a great starting point as it provides a good high-level view of the relevant journal articles for whatever keyword you throw at it. Most valuably, it tells you how many times each article has been cited, which gives you an idea of how credible (or at least, popular) it is. Some articles will be free to access, while others will require an account, which brings us to the next method.
Generally, universities provide students with access to an online library, which provides access to many (but not all) of the major journals.
So, if you find an article using Google Scholar that requires paid access (which is quite likely), search for that article in your university’s database – if it’s listed there, you’ll have access. Note that, generally, the search engine capabilities of these databases are poor, so make sure you search for the exact article name, or you might not find it.
At the end of every academic journal article, you’ll find a list of references. As with any academic writing, these references are the building blocks of the article, so if the article is relevant to your topic, there’s a good chance a portion of the referenced works will be too. Do a quick scan of the titles and see what seems relevant, then search for the relevant ones in your university’s database.
Similar to Method 3 above, you can leverage other students’ dissertations. All you have to do is skim through literature review chapters of existing dissertations related to your topic and you’ll find a gold mine of potential literature. Usually, your university will provide you with access to previous students’ dissertations, but you can also find a much larger selection in the following databases:
Keep in mind that dissertations and theses are not as academically sound as published, peer-reviewed journal articles (because they’re written by students, not professionals), so be sure to check the credibility of any sources you find using this method. You can do this by assessing the citation count of any given article in Google Scholar. If you need help with assessing the credibility of any article, or with finding relevant research in general, you can chat with one of our Research Specialists .
Alright – with a good base of literature firmly under your belt, it’s time to move onto the next step.
Once you’ve built a little treasure trove of articles, it’s time to get reading and start digesting the information – what does it all mean?
While I present steps one and two (hunting and digesting) as sequential, in reality, it’s more of a back-and-forth tango – you’ll read a little , then have an idea, spot a new citation, or a new potential variable, and then go back to searching for articles. This is perfectly natural – through the reading process, your thoughts will develop , new avenues might crop up, and directional adjustments might arise. This is, after all, one of the main purposes of the literature review process (i.e. to familiarise yourself with the current state of research in your field).
As you’re working through your treasure chest, it’s essential that you simultaneously start organising the information. There are three aspects to this:
I’ll discuss each of these below:
As you read each article, you should add it to your reference management software. I usually recommend Mendeley for this purpose (see the Mendeley 101 video below), but you can use whichever software you’re comfortable with. Most importantly, make sure you load EVERY article you read into your reference manager, even if it doesn’t seem very relevant at the time.
In the beginning, you might feel confident that you can remember who said what, where, and what their main arguments were. Trust me, you won’t. If you do a thorough review of the relevant literature (as you must!), you’re going to read many, many articles, and it’s simply impossible to remember who said what, when, and in what context . Also, without the bird’s eye view that a catalogue provides, you’ll miss connections between various articles, and have no view of how the research developed over time. Simply put, it’s essential to build your own catalogue of the literature.
I would suggest using Excel to build your catalogue, as it allows you to run filters, colour code and sort – all very useful when your list grows large (which it will). How you lay your spreadsheet out is up to you, but I’d suggest you have the following columns (at minimum):
If you’d like, you can try out our free catalog template here (see screenshot below).
Most importantly, as you work through the literature and build your catalogue, you need to synthesise all the information in your own mind – how does it all fit together? Look for links between the various articles and try to develop a bigger picture view of the state of the research. Some important questions to ask yourself are:
To help you develop a big-picture view and synthesise all the information, you might find mind mapping software such as Freemind useful. Alternatively, if you’re a fan of physical note-taking, investing in a large whiteboard might work for you.
Once you’re satisfied that you have digested and distilled all the relevant literature in your mind, it’s time to put pen to paper (or rather, fingers to keyboard). There are two steps here – outlining and writing:
Having spent so much time reading, it might be tempting to just start writing up without a clear structure in mind. However, it’s critically important to decide on your structure and develop a detailed outline before you write anything. Your literature review chapter needs to present a clear, logical and an easy to follow narrative – and that requires some planning. Don’t try to wing it!
Naturally, you won’t always follow the plan to the letter, but without a detailed outline, you’re more than likely going to end up with a disjointed pile of waffle , and then you’re going to spend a far greater amount of time re-writing, hacking and patching. The adage, “measure twice, cut once” is very suitable here.
In terms of structure, the first decision you’ll have to make is whether you’ll lay out your review thematically (into themes) or chronologically (by date/period). The right choice depends on your topic, research objectives and research questions, which we discuss in this article .
Once that’s decided, you need to draw up an outline of your entire chapter in bullet point format. Try to get as detailed as possible, so that you know exactly what you’ll cover where, how each section will connect to the next, and how your entire argument will develop throughout the chapter. Also, at this stage, it’s a good idea to allocate rough word count limits for each section, so that you can identify word count problems before you’ve spent weeks or months writing!
PS – check out our free literature review chapter template…
With a detailed outline at your side, it’s time to start writing up (finally!). At this stage, it’s common to feel a bit of writer’s block and find yourself procrastinating under the pressure of finally having to put something on paper. To help with this, remember that the objective of the first draft is not perfection – it’s simply to get your thoughts out of your head and onto paper, after which you can refine them. The structure might change a little, the word count allocations might shift and shuffle, and you might add or remove a section – that’s all okay. Don’t worry about all this on your first draft – just get your thoughts down on paper.
Once you’ve got a full first draft (however rough it may be), step away from it for a day or two (longer if you can) and then come back at it with fresh eyes. Pay particular attention to the flow and narrative – does it fall fit together and flow from one section to another smoothly? Now’s the time to try to improve the linkage from each section to the next, tighten up the writing to be more concise, trim down word count and sand it down into a more digestible read.
Once you’ve done that, give your writing to a friend or colleague who is not a subject matter expert and ask them if they understand the overall discussion. The best way to assess this is to ask them to explain the chapter back to you. This technique will give you a strong indication of which points were clearly communicated and which weren’t. If you’re working with Grad Coach, this is a good time to have your Research Specialist review your chapter.
Finally, tighten it up and send it off to your supervisor for comment. Some might argue that you should be sending your work to your supervisor sooner than this (indeed your university might formally require this), but in my experience, supervisors are extremely short on time (and often patience), so, the more refined your chapter is, the less time they’ll waste on addressing basic issues (which you know about already) and the more time they’ll spend on valuable feedback that will increase your mark-earning potential.
In the video below, we unpack an actual literature review so that you can see how all the core components come together in reality.
In this post, we’ve covered how to research and write up a high-quality literature review chapter. Let’s do a quick recap of the key takeaways:
This post is an extract from our bestselling short course, Literature Review Bootcamp . If you want to work smart, you don't want to miss this .
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You’re welcome, Yinka. Thank you for the kind words. All the best writing your literature review.
Thank you for a very useful literature review session. Although I am doing most of the steps…it being my first masters an Mphil is a self study and one not sure you are on the right track. I have an amazing supervisor but one also knows they are super busy. So not wanting to bother on the minutae. Thank you.
You’re most welcome, Renee. Good luck with your literature review 🙂
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It is very good video of guidance for writing a research proposal and a dissertation. Since I have been watching and reading instructions, I have started my research proposal to write. I appreciate to Mr Jansen hugely.
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Thank you for sharing your knowledge. As a research student, you learn better with your learning tips in research
I was really stuck in reading and gathering information but after watching these things are cleared thanks, it is so helpful.
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Thank you for this whole literature writing review.You have simplified the process.
I’m so glad I found GradCoach. Excellent information, Clear explanation, and Easy to follow, Many thanks Derek!
You’re welcome, Maithe. Good luck writing your literature review 🙂
Thank you Coach, you have greatly enriched and improved my knowledge
Great piece, so enriching and it is going to help me a great lot in my project and thesis, thanks so much
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Good morning scholar. I’m delighted coming to know you even before the commencement of my dissertation which hopefully is expected in not more than six months from now. I would love to engage my study under your guidance from the beginning to the end. I love to know how to do good job
Thank you so much Derek for such useful information on writing up a good literature review. I am at a stage where I need to start writing my one. My proposal was accepted late last year but I honestly did not know where to start
Like the name of your YouTube implies you are GRAD (great,resource person, about dissertation). In short you are smart enough in coaching research work.
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Very comprehensive and eye opener for me as beginner in postgraduate study. Well explained and easy to understand. Appreciate and good reference in guiding me in my research journey. Thank you
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1. Purpose and Scope
To help you develop a literature review, gather information on existing research, sub-topics, relevant research, and overlaps. Note initial thoughts on the topic - a mind map or list might be helpful - and avoid unfocused reading, collecting irrelevant content. A literature review serves to place your research within the context of existing knowledge. It demonstrates your understanding of the field and identifies gaps that your research aims to fill. This helps in justifying the relevance and necessity of your study.
To avoid over-reading, set a target word count for each section and limit reading time. Plan backwards from the deadline and move on to other parts of the investigation. Read major texts and explore up-to-date research. Check reference lists and citation indexes for common standard texts. Be guided by research questions and refocus on your topic when needed. Stop reading if you find similar viewpoints or if you're going off topic.
You can use a "Synthesis Matrix" to keep track of your reading notes. This concept map helps you to provide a summary of the literature and its connections is produced as a result of this study. Utilizing referencing software like RefWorks to obtain citations, you can construct the framework for composing your literature evaluation.
2. Source Selection
Focus on searching for academically authoritative texts such as academic books, journals, research reports, and government publications. These sources are critical for ensuring the credibility and reliability of your review.
3. Thematic Analysis
Instead of merely summarizing sources, identify and discuss key themes that emerge from the literature. This involves interpreting and evaluating how different authors have tackled similar issues and how their findings relate to your research.
4. Critical Evaluation
Adopt a critical attitude towards the sources you review. Scrutinize, question, and dissect the material to ensure that your review is not just descriptive but analytical. This helps in highlighting the significance of various sources and their relevance to your research.
Each work's critical assessment should take into account:
Provenance: What qualifications does the author have? Are the author's claims backed up by proof, such as first-hand accounts from history, case studies, stories, statistics, and current scientific discoveries? Methodology: Were the strategies employed to locate, collect, and evaluate the data suitable for tackling the study question? Was the sample size suitable? Were the findings properly reported and interpreted? Objectivity : Is the author's viewpoint impartial or biased? Does the author's thesis get supported by evidence that refutes it, or does it ignore certain important facts? Persuasiveness: Which of the author's arguments is the strongest or weakest in terms of persuasiveness? Value: Are the author's claims and deductions believable? Does the study ultimately advance our understanding of the issue in any meaningful way?
5. Categorization
Organize your literature review by grouping sources into categories based on themes, relevance to research questions, theoretical paradigms, or chronology. This helps in presenting your findings in a structured manner.
6. Source Validity
Ensure that the sources you include are valid and reliable. Classic texts may retain their authority over time, but for fields that evolve rapidly, prioritize the most recent research. Always check the credibility of the authors and the impact of their work in the field.
7. Synthesis and Findings
Synthesize the information from various sources to draw conclusions about the current state of knowledge. Identify trends, controversies, and gaps in the literature. Relate your findings to your research questions and suggest future directions for research.
Practical Tips
Brown University Library (2024) Organizing and Creating Information. Available at: https://libguides.brown.edu/organize/litreview (Accessed: 30 July 2024).
Pacheco-Vega, R. (2016) Synthesizing different bodies of work in your literature review: The Conceptual Synthesis Excel Dump (CSED) technique . Available at: http://www.raulpacheco.org/2016/06/synthesizing-different-bodies-of-work-in-your-literature-review-the-conceptual-synthesis-excel-dump-technique/ (Accessed: 30 July 2024).
Study Advice at the University of Reading (2024) Literature reviews . Available at: https://libguides.reading.ac.uk/literaturereview/developing (Accessed: 31 July 2024).
Further Reading
Frameworks for creating answerable (re)search questions How to Guide
Literature Searching How to Guide
A literature or narrative review is a comprehensive review and analysis of the published literature on a specific topic or research question. The literature that is reviewed contains: books, articles, academic articles, conference proceedings, association papers, and dissertations. It contains the most pertinent studies and points to important past and current research and practices. It provides background and context, and shows how your research will contribute to the field.
A literature review should:
From S age Research Methods
A literature review can be written as an introduction to a study to:
Or it can be a separate work (a research article on its own) which:
Some of the limitations of a literature review are:
Source: Grant, Maria J., and Andrew Booth. “A Typology of Reviews: An Analysis of 14 Review Types and Associated Methodologies.” Health Information & Libraries Journal, vol. 26, no. 2, June 2009, pp. 91–108. Wiley Online Library, doi:10.1111/j.1471-1842.2009.00848.x.
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Increasing digitization and advances in artificial intelligence (AI) are bringing new jobs or business models. There is a gap in current research on the impact of digitalization on performance. This systematic literature review (SLR) seeks to enhance our understanding of this field and provides a logical evaluation of existing contributions. It aims to review research on the way artificial intelligence impacts performance. The findings show that artificial intelligence has a significant impact on business, especially a positive impact on entrepreneurs. The present study provides policy signal makers and entrepreneurs with a comprehensive view of key concepts, enabling them to understand the current state of artificial intelligence in the industry.
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Mnajli, F.E., Chroqui, R. (2024). Contribution of Artificial Intelligence in Entrepreneurship: A Systematic Literature Review. In: Motahhir, S., Bossoufi, B. (eds) Digital Technologies and Applications. ICDTA 2024. Lecture Notes in Networks and Systems, vol 1100. Springer, Cham. https://doi.org/10.1007/978-3-031-68660-3_2
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Many astronomers in Western countries may have taken open data sharing (ODS) for granted to enhance astronomical discoveries and productivity. However, how strong such an assumption holds among Chinese astronomers has not been investigated or deliberated extensively. This may hinder international ODS with Chinese astronomers and lead to a misunderstanding of Chinese astronomers’ perceptions and practices of ODS. To fill this gap, we conducted a qualitative study comprising 14 semi-structured interviews and 136 open-ended survey responses with Chinese astronomers to understand their choices and concerns regarding ODS. We found that many Chinese astronomers conducted ODS to promote research outputs and respected it as a tradition. Some Chinese astronomers have advocated for data rights protection and data infrastructure’s further improvement in usability and availability to guarantee their ODS practices. Still, some Chinese astronomers agonized about ODS regarding the validity of oral commitment with international research groups and the choices between international traditions and domestic customs in ODS. We discovered two dimensions in Chinese astronomers’ action strategies and choices of ODS and discussed their descriptions and consequences. We also proposed the implications of our research for enhancing international ODS in future work.
Introduction.
Open data sharing (ODS) emphasizes scientific data’s availability to the public beyond its usability and distribution within academic communities (UNESCO, 2021 ). ODS has become increasingly significant since the Big Data era has engendered a paradigm shift towards data-intensive science (Tolle et al., 2011 ), and ODS has promoted data-intensive science to incorporate all stakeholders, such as researchers, policymakers, and system designers to address data processing and utilization issues collectively (Kurata et al., 2017 ; Zuiderwijk et al., 2024 ). Meanwhile, ODS has improved scientific discovery and productivity since different governments and funding agencies have endorsed ODS and published policies to facilitate it (Lamprecht et al., 2020 ). For example, the UK Research and Innovation (UKRI) issued the “Concordat on open research data” in 2016 to ensure that research data gathered and generated by the UK research community must be openly available to the public (UK Research and Innovation, 2016 ). The Chinese government published a “Scientific Data Management Methods” policy in 2018, requiring government-funded research to share its data with the public (General Office of the State Council of China, 2018 ). Besides such government initiatives, the scientific community has also proposed guiding principles for ODS, such as the “FAIR principles” to facilitate data sharing in respect of Findability, Accessibility, Interoperability, and Reuse (Wilkinson et al., 2016 ).
Astronomy is data-intensive and has long been regarded as a prime model of ODS for other scientific fields. For example, the famous Large Synoptic Survey Telescope (LSST) project has committed to real-time ODS after its start-up in 2025 and has released early survey data since June 2021 (Guy et al., 2023 ). Scholars have conducted a few studies to dig out the good practices of ODS in astronomy and found that ODS has a long tradition in astronomy supported by its well-established knowledge infrastructure and data policies (Zuiderwijk and Spiers, 2019 ; Borgman et al., 2021 ). Still, scholars found that some astronomers were hesitant to conduct ODS due to the high reward expectations (e.g., acknowledgment, institutional yearly evaluation, extra citation) and extra efforts (e.g., additional data description) required in ODS practices (Zuiderwijk and Spiers, 2019 ; Kim and Zhang, 2015 ); some astronomers also raised barriers about the usability and availability of data infrastructure to support ODS practices (Pepe et al., 2014 ).
Despite the ODS tradition in astronomy, researchers’ motivations and barriers to ODS may differ based on their cultural contexts. Most empirical studies of ODS have been conducted in Western and developed countries (Genova, 2018 ). Whether these findings hold in non-Western cultures deserves further exploration. Chinese culture and customs differ from Western ones, which may impose distinctive influences on Chinese people’s perspectives and behaviors. For example, Confucianism often renders Chinese individual researchers stick to collectivism or the societal roles assigned to them (Jin and Peng, 2021 ), which is less common in Western culture or academia to our knowledge. Also, scientific research paradigms have originated from and situated in Western culture for a long time. They call for critical examinations and alternative perspectives at the individual and societal or cultural levels, and ODS has been regarded as an essential lens to deliberate it (Serwadda et al., 2018 ; Bezuidenhout and Chakauya, 2018 ; Zuiderwijk et al., 2024 ).
Besides our concerns about cultural and research paradigm differences, Chinese astronomers’ distinctive characteristics have also motivated us to conduct this study. First, based on our prior experience with some Chinese astronomers, we have observed that Chinese astronomers follow enclosed or independent data-sharing norms that are uncommon to researchers in other disciplines. Their research seems to be more international than domestic. Since a slogan from the Chinese government has influenced many research disciplines (including ours) in China, advocating Chinese scholars to “Write your paper on the motherland” (Wang et al., 2024 ), we wondered how such propaganda would impact Chinese astronomers’ attitudes and behaviors. Second, a recent study has revealed that some Chinese astronomers struggled with ODS because they respected it as a tradition on the one hand and desired to gain career advantages (e.g., more data citations) on the other (Liu J, 2021). This finding contrasts another recent study’s conclusion that Chinese early career researchers (ECRs) (in non-astronomy disciplines) would only welcome ODS if the evaluation system rewarded them (Xu, et al., 2020 ). Hence, we wanted to investigate Chinese astronomers’ motivations and barriers regarding ODS further.
Finally, though ODS has been well-acknowledged internationally, it has not been studied or implemented extensively in most research disciplines in China, with astronomy as a rare exception. Hence, we posited that research about ODS in astronomy might shed light on other research disciplines’ popularization of ODS in China. In addition, previous studies on ODS in China have primarily focused on the Chinese government’s open data policies, infrastructure conditions, and management practices (Zhang, et al., 2022 ; Huang et al., 2021 ). To the best of our knowledge, little attention has been paid to Chinese researchers’ perceptions and practices. Thus, we wanted to conduct an exploratory investigation with Chinese astronomers to fill this gap and foster international ODS and research collaboration in Chinese astronomy and other research disciplines more broadly.
With these motivations in mind, we proposed the following research questions.
How do Chinese astronomers perceive and practice open data sharing?
Why do some Chinese astronomers hesitate over the issue of open data sharing?
To address those research questions, we conducted a qualitative study comprising 14 semi-structured interviews and 136 open-ended survey responses with Chinese astronomers to understand their practices and concerns regarding ODS. We found that many Chinese astronomers conducted ODS to promote research outputs and respected it as a tradition. Some Chinese astronomers have advocated for data rights protection and data infrastructure’s further improvement in usability and availability to guarantee their ODS practices. Still, some Chinese astronomers agonized about ODS regarding the validity of oral commitment with international research groups and the choices between international traditions and domestic customs in ODS. We discovered two dimensions in Chinese astronomers’ action strategies and choices of ODS and discussed these findings and implications. This study makes the following contributions. First, it provides a non-Western viewpoint for global ODS in astronomy and recommendations for advancing global and Chinese ODS policies and practices. Second, it reveals Chinese astronomers’ concerns, motivations, and barriers to conducting ODS. This may inspire domestic government, international research policymakers, and ODS platforms and practitioners to empathize with and support Chinese astronomers. Finally, this study may shed light on implementing ODS in other research disciplines in China, which has not been popular.
The background of ods in science.
The open data movement in scientific communities was initiated at the beginning of the 21st century (e.g., Max Planck Society, 2003) (Tu and Shen, 2023 ). ODS, also known as open research data, advocates that the openness of scientific data to the public is imperative to science (UNESCO, 2021 ; Fox et al., 2021 ). Prior research has inquired about researchers’ intrinsic and extrinsic motivations for ODS. Intrinsic motivations include personal background and ethical perspectives. For example, a researcher’s personal background (research experience, gender, position, age, etc.) has been found to affect their ODS preferences, and significant differences have been observed in research experience (Zuiderwijk and Spiers, 2019 ; Digital Science et al., 2024 ). Also, a researcher’s ethical stance influences their ODS practices. Some researchers conduct ODS because they want to benefit the research community and promote reciprocity among data stakeholders, such as data producers, funders, and data users (Lee et al., 2014 ; Ju and Kim, 2019 ). Extrinsic motivations for ODS include incentive policies, data infrastructure, and external pressures from funders, journals, or community rules. Incentive policies, such as the promise of data citation and the rewarding credit from their institutions, effectively enhance ODS (Dorch et al., 2015 ; Popkin, 2019 ). Also, a well-established infrastructure could facilitate ODS by reducing its cost (Kim and Zhang, 2015 ). Moreover, regulations from researchers’ stakeholders (e.g., journals and funders) press their ODS practices as well. One example is developing data policies. Kim and Stanton proposed that journal regulative pressure has significantly positive relationships with ODS behaviors (Kim and Stanton, 2016 ).
Despite the motivations, researchers in ODS still have valid justifications for not conducting such practices (Zuiderwijk et al., 2024 ; Boeckhout et al., 2018 ). Sayogo and Pardo categorized those barriers into (1) technological barriers, (2) social, organizational, and economic barriers, and (3) legal and policy barriers (Sayogo and Pardo, 2013 ). More specifically, at the individual level, Houtkoop et al. found that ODS was uncommon in psychology due to psychologists’ insufficient training and extra workload (Houtkoop et al., 2018 ). Meanwhile, Banks et al. indicated that researchers in organizational research were afraid of exposing the quality of their data (Banks et al., 2022 ). In addition, researchers’ ethical concerns also influence their ODS practices, primarily privacy and fairness issues. Walsh et al. identified the privacy risks related to identity, attribute, and membership disclosure as the main ethical concerns about ODS (Walsh et al., 2018 ). Anane et al. worried that ODS could compromise fairness because some new or busy researchers might lose their data rights during the critical post‐first‐publication period (Anane-Sarpong et al., 2020 ). At the societal level, inadequate data policies have failed to guarantee researchers’ data rights, and property rights are unclear. Enwald et al. proposed that researchers in physics and technology, arts and humanities, social sciences, and health sciences were concerned about legal issues (e.g., confidentiality and intellectual property rights), misuse or misinterpretation of data, and loss of authorship (Enwald et al., 2022 ). Anane et al. found that data ownership was a crucial barrier affecting public health researchers’ willingness to share data openly (Anane-Sarpong et al., 2018 ).
Astronomy has been a prime example of ODS practices in scientific communities (Koribalski, 2019 ). For example, in gamma-ray astronomy, astronomers have explored how to render high-level data formats and software openly accessible and sharable for the astronomical community (Deil et al., 2017 ). In space-based astronomy, ODS has been an established norm in its research community for a long history (Harris and Baumann, 2015 ). In the interdisciplinary field of astrophysics, evidence has shown that papers with links to data, which also represent an approach of ODS, have a citation advantage over papers that did not link the data (Dorch et al., 2015 ). Additionally, many data archives in astronomy have been openly accessible to the public to increase their reusable value and potential for rediscovery (Rebull, 2022 ).
Prior studies have examined the socio-technical factors fostering ODS. Data policies support ODS implementations, and existing data infrastructure plays an essential role in ODS practices in astronomy (Pasquetto et al., 2016 ; Genova, 2018 ). For example, Reichman et al. attributed astronomy’s long tradition of ODS to its extensive and collaborative infrastructure (e.g., software and data centers) (Reichman et al., 2011 ). In practice, some famous astronomy organizations have built solid data infrastructures to support ODS, such as NASA Astrophysics Data System (ADS) and the International Virtual Observatory Alliance (IVOA) (Kurtz et al., 2004 ; Genova, 2018 ). Astronomy’s integrated knowledge infrastructure spanning decades and countries, encompassing observational data, catalogs, bibliographic records, archives, thesauri, and software, prompts global ODS among astronomers (Borgman et al., 2021 ). Many astronomers have a strong sense of duty to their research communities and the public. Thus, they would accept requests for data to assist colleagues and facilitate new scientific discoveries, which enhances ODS (Stahlman, 2022 ). Besides, astronomers perceived reciprocity influences their ODS practices. They aspire to improve their research outputs’ visibility and contribute to new, innovative, or high-quality research via ODS (Zuiderwijk and Spiers, 2019 ).
Still, some factors may hinder astronomers’ ODS practices. At the individual level, ODS may bring them extra learning load and academic reputation risks. For example, if astronomers perceive challenges in ODS or feel they need to acquire further knowledge, they may be less inclined to engage in such practices (Gray et al., 2011 ). Additionally, astronomers expressed concerns about the possibility of others discovering mistakes in the data (Zuiderwijk and Spiers, 2019 ). Pepe et al. also showed that the difficulty of sharing large data sets and the overreliance on non-robust, non-reproducible mechanisms for sharing data (e.g., via email) were the main hindrances to astronomers’ ODS practices (Pepe et al., 2014 ). At the societal level, an exponential increase in astronomical data volume has led to a continuous enrichment of utilization scenarios. ODS may involve data privacy or national security issues, especially when such data is integrated with other datasets. Thus, Harris and Baumann regarded the primary concern in global ODS as safeguarding national security and establishing appropriate licensing mechanisms (Harris and Baumann, 2015 ).
The Chinese government has recognized ODS as a national strategy in both scientific and public service domains. They issued the “Scientific Data Management Methods” in 2018 and “Opinions on Building a More Perfect System and Mechanism for the Market-oriented Allocation of Factors” in 2022. These policies require that data from government-funded research projects must be shared with the public according to the principle of “openness as the norm and non-openness as the exception” (General Office of the State Council of China, 2018 ; General Office of the State Council of China, 2024 ). The Chinese government applied the “hierarchical management, safety, and control” concept as ODS arrangements to realize a dynamic ordered open research data at the social level (Li et al., 2022 ).
At the institutional level, the Chinese Academy of Sciences (CAS) has been actively promoting infrastructure construction and institutional repositories to support ODS. For example, CAS has affiliated eleven out of twenty national-level data centers that are foundational for ODS in China since 2019. Meanwhile, many Chinese journals have published data policies requesting that researchers append their papers with open-access data. The National Natural Science Foundation of China (NSFC) has funded over 6000 data-intensive research programs, encouraging ODS among them in compliance with the NSFC’s mandate (Zhang et al., 2021 ). Regarding Chinese researchers’ attitudes and practices toward ODS, Zhang et al. have observed that Chinese data policies have shifted from focusing on data management to encompassing both data governance and ODS. This shift has shrunk the gap between Chinese researchers’ positive attitudes toward ODS and their less active ODS behaviors (Zhang et al., 2021 ). Driven by journal policies, Chinese researchers’ ODS behaviors have been encouraged. For example, Li et al. found that more than 90% of the published dataset of ScienceDB is also paper-related data and proposed that the pressure from journals has been the main driving force for researchers to conduct ODS (Li et al., 2022 ). ScienceDB (Science Data Bank) is a general-purpose repository in China that publishes scientific research data from various disciplines (Science Data Bank, 2024 ).
We conducted a qualitative study comprising 14 interviews and 136 open-ended survey questions with Chinese astronomers from 12 institutions. Our interview questions were semi-structured. Some were framed from the existing literature, and others were generated during the interviews based on the interviewees’ responses. Our open-ended questions are extended from a recent survey on data management services in Chinese astronomy (Liu, 2021 ). Table 1 depicts the formation of our interview questions that served as the major source of our research data. We acknowledge that the interviewees’ responses could be influenced by questions and context during the interview and tried to avoid such biases with the following strategies. First, although Chinese astronomers were hard to contact and recruit, we did our best to diversify our interview sample. Our interviewed Chinese astronomers included researchers and practitioners in observatories, scholars and Ph.D. students in astronomy at top universities in China, and researchers in astronomical research centers. Second, we conducted our interviews in different contexts, such as on campus, in observatories, at research centers, and over phones. Thus, we tried to de-contextualize our interview questions to reduce potential biases. Finally, our qualitative data and analysis were not only from interviews but also from our previous survey. We used the interview and survey data to corroborate and complement each other.
Our interviews were conducted in person or via WeChat video. They lasted 30–45 min and were recorded and fully transcribed. Our recruitment was challenging and time-consuming due to COVID-19 and the limited number of Chinese astronomers available for the interview. We have obtained their informed consent and have followed strict institutional rules to protect their privacy and data confidentiality. In addition, we conducted a survey using the online platform ‘Survey Star’ and obtained responses from 136 Chinese astronomers. For the scope of this paper, we focus on reporting qualitative data.
We kept our first round of data analysis, including notetaking and transcription, simultaneous with the interview progress. Meanwhile, we have fully transcribed and translated the interview recordings in Chinese into verbatim in English. As for the data analysis part, we employed the thematic analysis technique to extract and analyze themes from the interview transcripts (The interviewees are numbered with the letter P) and open-ended survey responses (The survey responses are numbered with the letter Q). Thematic analysis is well-suited for analyzing interview transcripts and open-ended survey responses (Braun and Clarke, 2006 ). We referenced Braun and Clarke’s recommended phases and stages of the analysis process (Braun and Clarke, 2006 ). First, we read through transcriptions and highlight meaning units. Simultaneously, we conducted coding and identified participants’ accounts, which were presented in the form of notes. Second, we categorized the codes and subsequently attributed them with themes that corresponded to ethical concerns. Third, we verified the themes by having them reviewed by two additional authors to ensure high accuracy in our analysis. Finally, we linked our themes with existing literature to provide a more comprehensive narrative of our findings. Table 2 lists the demographic information of the interviewees.
We referenced Stamm et al.’s work to categorize the career stages of the Chinese astronomers we interviewed (Stamm et al., 2017 ). As shown in Table 2 , Most interviewees fall into the Senior-career stage because they have rich research experiences and resources in ODS.
We categorize the Chinese astronomers’ ODS behaviors into three types at different stages of ODS. First, Chinese astronomers mentioned that one type of ODS behavior is making the data publicly available on a popular platform (e.g., Github, NASA ADS, arXiv) or data centers after the proprietary data period has expired. The proprietary data period, or the exclusive data period, refers to the time between researchers first accessing the data and publishing their findings. This period typically ranges from one year to two years in astronomy, which aims to cover a normal and complete astronomical research cycle. P13 explained:
The data is not in our hands. After we use the telescope to complete the observations, the data will be stored in the telescope’s database. During the proprietary period (12 months), only you can view it. After the proprietary data period has passed, anyone can view it. (P13)
She meant that the raw data produced by astronomers were stored by the builders, who were also responsible for making those data visible to the public when the proprietary data period had expired. Zuiderwijk and Spiers’s survey has also revealed that astronomers seldom store raw data due to their inability to build a data center. Consequently, astronomers often do not influence data-sharing decisions directly but only propose data collection ideas (Zuiderwijk and Spiers, 2019 ).
Secondly, Chinese astronomers also regraded sharing the data with research teams or individuals upon their requests during the proprietary data period, which is also feasible. For example, P5, said:
I published one paper using research data whose proprietary period hasn’t expired. If someone emailed me to inquire whether they could obtain the data for “Figure 2” [here P5 referred to an exemplary figure in her previous publication]. I usually send the data to them. It is common [in astronomy] to communicate with the author via email to consult their willingness toward ODS. (P5)
P5 assumed that sharing data privately was allowed and common among astronomers when the proprietary data period had not yet expired. To some extent, P5 also transformed this private approach toward a visible approach by making his processed data public and publishing it on open platforms.
P11 added the reason why astronomers used this private approach:
The data is not immediately made available. There is a proprietary data period of one or two years. Priority is given to the direct contributors to use the data and produce the first batch of scientific results. After the proprietary data period has expired, others were allowed to discover the value of the data jointly…Other astronomers may also be interested in the data during the proprietary data period. After all, during this period, others were unable to conduct observations and produce data. (P11)
P11 explained that during the period when he applied for observation, others could not produce the data by using the same telescope. However, they might still be interested in such data. Thus, he might share their research data privately with other astronomers if he deemed it necessary for the other astronomers’ research.
Finally, besides the open sharing of research data, two other astronomers also introduced the third type of ODS behavior, the open sharing of research software, tools, and codes. P12 explained:
When the project was completed, project funders required all the research data to be submitted to a certain location for public use. We also needed to submit the software, tools, and related codes developed by astronomers. (P12)
According to P12, ODS is not merely about data per se but also its associated processing tools and accompaniment.
Another astronomer, P10, mentioned that astronomers may also share their software openly to enhance their research influence. P10 said:
Astronomers may openly share their programs in theoretical research and data simulation, particularly simulation programs or source files. They create open-source materials related to their articles and then make their software or related models available online. They also require acknowledgment if someone uses them later. Nowadays, many astronomers use this method for ODS. (P10)
Ods is a tradition and duty.
Twelve Chinese astronomers also mentioned that ODS was a traditional norm in astronomy, and they have been obeying it since they entered this scientific field. P11 said:
We have known a traditional norm since we started working in this field. That is, every time you apply for telescope observations and obtain data, this data must be made public one year later. Even if you have not completed your research or published a paper by then, the data will still be made public. For us astronomers, ODS is a natural practice and meaningful endeavor. We believe that astronomy is a role model of ODS for other research fields to follow. (P11)
Four Chinese astronomers also introduced the influence of the tradition of ODS on their motivations for ODS. For example, P10 said:
In the past, I have obtained data of my interest from other astronomers by emailing them. Therefore, if someone approaches me for data, I would also be willing to provide it. (P10)
Another two astronomers elaborated that they acknowledge the ODS tradition due to its benefit to both astronomers and telescopes. P1 said:
According to the international convention, to promote the influence of the telescope and enrich its research outputs, the data is released to the public based on different proprietary data periods. Each data release includes not only raw data but also data products generated by technical personnel processing the raw data. (P1)
I do not process raw data; instead, I typically utilize data products generated by telescopes. These data products, which are openly available in the public domain, assist individuals like me who lack technical expertise in processing raw data to conduct scientific research. Thus, we must also acknowledge the telescope’s contribution when publishing our findings. This is the norm in astronomy. (P13)
P1’s and P13’s opinions were common, which elaborated that telescopes have offered astronomers different kinds of data, enhancing their potential research outputs. In return, when researchers utilize the data generated by telescopes, they also contribute to the telescope’s influence and reputation.
It is worth noting that this tradition is also in telescopes’ data policies, which influences Chinese telescopes’ data proprietary periods setting. For example, the Chinese astronomy projects LAMOST and FAST release data policies that mention the proprietary data period following international conventions. As indicated by P6, the international convention typically observes the proprietary data period of six months to one and a half years.
Six Chinese astronomers believed that ODS is an established tradition in astronomy and ought to be respected and enacted as a duty without considering external factors or consequences. For example, P8, mentioned that:
Astronomy is a very pure discipline without economic benefit, and we have the tradition of ODS. Therefore, they state their data source or post a link to their data directly. My willingness to conduct ODS is also influenced by this atmosphere. Besides that, I regard ODS as a basic requirement because data should be tested [via ODS]. (P8)
Another two astronomers considered ODS in astronomy the nature of science, which motivated them to pursue the goal of openness persistently. For example, P11 said:
Astronomy exemplifies a characteristic of being borderless, where there is a strong inclination towards open academic exchange and sharing of resources and tools. Additionally, astronomy is pure due to its non-profit nature. Thus, astronomers have always maintained simplicity, leading to a culture of openness. (P11)
Still, four Chinese astronomers hoped to improve their research influence and citations through ODS, especially the research to which they had devoted the most effort. For example, P10 said:
Astronomers not only release their data but also the software or code to process it. This is because if other astronomers use my software and code to process the data, they would also cite the papers with my shared software and code. This will increase the influence of my papers and software or code. (P10)
A similar perspective came from our survey responses Q19, Q22, Q34, and Q47, who also perceived that ODS could improve the research impact of their papers and data. For example, Q22 stated:
I have encountered situations where other researchers requested access to my data. One of the reasons I am willing to share data [with them] is to increase my paper citations. (Q22)
Additionally, some Chinese astronomers practiced ODS to replicate and validate their research. For example, Q26 said:
The primary reason I endorse ODS is to replicate my data analysis by peers and enable independent verification of my research outputs. (Q26)
Fourteen Chinese astronomers mentioned that ODS could increase their research outputs and provide possibilities to obtain other astronomers’ data, thereby promoting the prosperity of research outputs in the entire astronomy community. More importantly, they have established a new type of collaborative opportunity through ODS when data are sufficient but resources/capacities to utilize data are limited. For example, P12 expressed that ODS had a positive impact on the research outputs of the scientific community:
An astronomer I respect once stated that initially, they wanted to conceal all research data, but this proved impossible due to the vast amount of data produced by the telescope. As a result, they released all the data from their large-scale projects. The outcome of this ODS behavior rendered explosive growth in research outputs. (P12)
Another two astronomers noted that ODS was essential to cultivate more astronomers to form collaborative efforts to increase research outputs in the scientific community. P6 said:
The data generated by telescopes used to observe transient events have not been subject to the proprietary data period. Once I observe such events, I will encourage other researchers to join in and rapidly identify these unexpected phenomena, facilitating subsequent observations using various telescopes to maximize scientific output as quickly as possible. (P6)
P6 elaborated that astronomers rely on collaborative efforts for special observations, such as discovering new stars, which maximizes the utilization of global telescope resources. This motivation strengthens collaborations among astronomers from different research teams. P14 added:
New events [e.g., new star discoveries] in astronomy often occur in transience. If I do not share information about these events, other astronomers will not know about them. With limited resources, I may be unable to observe them through other telescopes. However, sharing preliminary data about these events can maximize global resources. This allows for a collaborative effort to observe the event using resources from around the world. (P14)
P14 stated that ODS has the potential to appeal to more astronomers to research contributions through their subsequent and collective efforts based on the initial observation. P14’s opinion echoed Reichman et al.’s findings, which revealed that extensive and collaborative infrastructure was the primary driver behind the adoption of ODS (Reichman et al., 2011 ).
Prior research also indicated that limited resources and capacities would increase collaboration among astronomers in astrophysics research (Zuiderwijk and Spiers, 2019 ). A similar opinion also arose from our survey responses Q18, Q30, and Q52. For example, Q30 said:
I am good at processing data instead of writing papers. ODS can allow me to collaborate with someone who is good at writing papers to co-produce the research output. (Q30)
The limitations of verbal agreements in international collaboration.
Although most Chinese astronomers endorsed ODS, three were concerned about other astronomers who might have violated their initial commitments to using data for scientific purposes. For example, P7 commented:
I used to have experiences with foreign collaborators who violated their initial commitments, resulting in unpleasant consequences. Specifically, they promised in emails that they would process the data using a different approach from ours. However, they ended up using the same method and perspective as ours. There was not much to be said about it, as it was not illegal or against data policies’ regulations. It is a matter of trust and promises, and all I can do is not share data with them in the future. (P7)
P10 also added that often, the astronomers’ commitment to email correspondence had to rely on their self-discipline to materialize:
If the proprietary data period has not expired and you share the data with others, you have no control over what they do with it except to trust their promise in the email. This situation relies on the self-discipline of astronomers. (P10)
Three astronomers were also concerned about the validity of oral agreements about ODS. They referred to them as “gentlemen’s agreements.” For example, P14 explained:
In principle, data can be shared with others without a signed contract between us but based on the so-called gentleman’s agreement. Thus, some Chinese astronomers may not be willing to make their research data public because they must assume that everyone is a gentleman [to keep their promise], which may not always be the case as there are also scientists who are not accountable due to a highly competitive environment [in science]. (P14)
P14 regarded the “gentlemen’s agreements” as effective only to those who acted in good faith in fulfilling their commitments. They would not impose or presuppose any “ethical” constraints on collaborators. Hence, he noted that some astronomers were unwilling to share data openly within the proprietary data period because they did not trust the other astronomers’ accountability to fulfill their “gentlemen’s agreements.” Besides that, P6 explained the reason that astronomers have broken their commitments. He said:
In astronomy, some data policies have not been effectively constrained because it is impossible to encompass all subsequent data usage and collaboration situations at first…Also, there are many astronomy alliances. If you are not part of our alliance, you are not bound to commitments, which may lead to disputable issues. (P6)
Ten Chinese astronomers considered that the data they obtained possessed unique scientific values that could contribute to their publication priority and prolificity. Given the fact that publication priority, authorship order, and quantity are still the most important and prevalent factors in evaluating a scholar in China, it becomes comprehensible that these astronomers have expressed concerns about the risk of losing the ‘right of first publication’ if they openly share their processed data too soon. For example, P9 confessed:
I am unwilling to conduct ODS primarily because my research findings have not been published yet. I am concerned that ODS might lead to someone else publishing related findings before I do. (P9)
Similar concerns were also expressed in our survey responses Q42, Q46, and Q53. Q53 provided a more detailed explanation:
The individuals or organizations that produce data should have the right to use it first and only make it publicly available after a round of exploration and the publication of relevant research results. If the data is shared openly and completely from the outset, the number of people or organizations willing to invest time and money in obtaining data in the future will decrease since they can use data obtained by others instead of acquiring it by themselves. (Q53)
Another astronomer, P12, held a negative attitude toward ODS at the early stage of research because he was concerned that their data processing capacity was slower than the other research groups once the data was shared with them:
I put a lot of effort into processing data, and if my research findings have not been published but I release my data in three months [some international rules recommend astronomers to open their data as soon as possible], then someone with a more sophisticated data processing software may be able to write and analyze their research paper within a week because they already have the complete workflow prepared. This may upset the sharers who intended to publish a similar finding, as their work has been done so quickly [sooner than the sharer]. (P12)
A similar opinion could be seen in our survey response Q46:
The scientific community should ensure that those who have worked hard to produce the data also have the priority to publish their research findings before the data has been made publicly available. (Q46)
Five Chinese astronomers expressed their concerns about the disparities between the Chinese and foreign research infrastructures. For example, P9 expressed his concern that adhering to international rules in astronomy might contradict the domestic rules in China due to national security and data confidentiality considerations. He said:
International organizations hope our country will lead in ODS, which may sometimes harm our interests. This is especially the case for the data produced through Chinese telescopes, which are published in international academic journals upon the international journal publishers’ requests because this data may involve confidential engineering tasks in Chinese telescopes that are subject to national security purposes. (P9)
Another astronomer, P4, also mentioned that astronomical data may include equipment parameters that may trigger national security concerns. Hence, she has undergone desensitization before conducting ODS:
Astronomical raw data are generated by the equipment directly and are categorized as first-level data [machine-generated data] in the data policies. More importantly, raw astronomical data should be processed before being opened to the public because the raw data may raise [national] security concerns and leakage equipment parameters. (P4)
P4’s concerns about national security are also reflected in China’s national data policies. For example, the Chinese government mandates the “hierarchical management, safety, and control” policy to supervise ODS to balance its order and dynamic (Li et al., 2022 ).
P8 added that Chinese astronomers are sometimes limited by national rules and domestic data infrastructure usability and accessibility. P8 said:
In some Chinese astronomical projects, only certain frequency bands are internationally permitted, and the first to occupy them claims ownership. Moreover, our data storage and ODS are limited by technical difficulties. We don’t have ODS platforms like NASA ADS. Even if there are, these platforms are currently not as recognized internationally as those abroad. Therefore, when astronomers publish papers or data, they default to submitting them to international platforms. (P8)
The pressure from domestic data policies.
Five Chinese astronomers have mentioned that ODS is subject to the requirements of domestic data policies. Thus, they sense the pressure to conduct ODS. For example, P6 indicated that many astronomy projects in China were government-funded and required data sharing and submission conforming to government regulations as the priority.
Chinese telescopes are primarily funded by the government, as researchers have not yet had the ability to build a telescope on their own. The entire Chinese population is considered one collective, while those non-Chinese are another. The Chinese government aims to promote ODS to data generated by projects funded by public funds. If researchers have not submitted research data to the government-delegated data center, it could potentially impact their subsequent research project approval. By contrast, some foreign telescopes are built by private institutions and may not have the option for ODS. (P6).
Another astronomer, P3, proposed that Chinese mandatory data policies prompt the ODS scale. However, complicated troubles remained.
Our data policies are mandatory, especially for projects funded by national grants. That is, if you don’t conduct ODS, your projects may not be accepted. The volume of ODS is rising consequently. However, the issues related to ODS still need to improve, such as the Chinese astronomers’ initiative willing to ODS is weak, and [sometimes] their open data cannot be reused. There is a need further to investigate Chinese researchers’ [ODS] behaviors, particularly to find the stimulations for them to conduct ODS proactively. (P3)
Besides, three Chinese astronomers shared that the traditional funding source in astronomy also motivated their ODS. P8 explained:
In China, astronomical data [from national telescopes] is mostly institutional and collective. One can apply to use a telescope at a particular institution to obtain astronomical data. The applications may receive different priorities, but the data is not privately owned. (P8)
P8 meant that Chinese astronomers relied on large telescope projects funded by the government. Consequently, the ownership of their observed data belongs to the collective astronomical community in China rather than individual astronomers or research teams.
Three astronomers have also introduced the issue of a language prerequisite in scientific communication. For example, P12 explained:
[Modern] astronomy predominantly originated from developed nations. Consequently, our conferences, data, and textbooks are primarily in English. However, this can be a barrier for young Chinese astronomers who are not proficient in English. At least among the researchers around me, everyone contends that English is a necessary prerequisite for entering the field of astronomy. That is to say, the entry barrier for astronomy is very high. I termed it “aristocratic science” because it is difficult to conduct astronomical research without good equipment, proficient English, or substantial funding. (P12)
Another astronomer, P9, dismissed astronomical journals in Chinese because these journals would not be acknowledged in the international astronomy community:
I believe English is a strict prerequisite in astronomy. If your English is poor, you may be restricted from engaging in ODS communication. I support [the slogan] publishing in Chinese to enhance Chinese scholars’ international influence, but most astronomical research originates from the West and is primarily dominated by Western institutions. Besides that, domestic journals are not valuable enough for academic evaluation or promotion due to their low influence factor. (P9)
Finally, P13 added that if Chinese astronomers always use English in ODS, it might potentially clash with the academic discourse system in China.
Some people may wonder why, as Chinese researchers, we need to use English to communicate our work. From my personal perspective, of course, I fully support promoting our research discourse system using Chinese as the primary language. However, from a [scientific] communication standpoint, there are times when we need to collaborate with foreign astronomers or improve communication efficiency [in English]. (P13)
Four Chinese astronomers have expressed concerns about ODS due to the highly competitive scientific community to which they belong. For example, P14 stated:
The field we are currently working in is highly competitive, so we need to consider protecting our team’s efforts. If we release the data, there is a possibility that other researchers using more advanced software tools could publish their findings before us. (P14)
Another astronomer, P12, remarked that this competitive atmosphere varies depending on the research directions. He said:
Competition is inevitable but varies across research areas. I engaged in two research areas. One is characterized by intense competition, but the other is more friendly. The highly competitive research area has many researchers pursuing high-quality data and tackling cutting-edge topics. Sometimes, competing with those who publish first or faster becomes necessary. In addition, one kind of “Nei Juan” may exist, which is competing to see who can open data faster. Because the faster your proposal is promised, the sooner your observation project will be approved. (P12)
“Nei Juan” (a.k.a. involution) manifests a fierce but often unfruitful competition to catch up with colleagues, peers, and generations (Li, 2021 ). P12 acknowledged the competitive environment that would push him to publish first or faster but also regarded “Nei Juan” as not always bad for ODS. Still, P9 considered that the “Nei Juan” issue may arise because Chinese astronomers want to catch up with the international astronomical development phase.
Generally speaking, astronomy is relatively less “Nei Juan” compared to other disciplines. However, its rapid development has begun to become more intense. Particularly, Chinese astronomy is in a phase of catching up, characterized by a collaborative yet competitive atmosphere with the international community. Our national astronomical teams, as a collective, are exerting great efforts to excel in some major projects compared to their foreign counterparts, engaging in strenuous research endeavors. (P9)
However, another astronomer, P11, regarded that ODS meant not “the sooner, the better.” P11 argued:
Some data may have been obtained through instrument testing, and its quality is not particularly high, resulting in lower reliability. If it is made openly accessible immediately, users may not obtain accurate results. Besides, the raw data may contain variances or noises originating from different instruments, requiring standardized processing through software to transform it into [reliable] data products. Only then can scientific users and the public truly benefit from this data. (P11)
Chinese astronomers’ motivations and behaviors in ODS can be interpreted threefold. First, a few Chinese astronomers’ obedience to ODS is traditional. They value the tradition of ODS in astronomy and contend that it should be respected and obeyed as an intrinsic duty (Heuritsch, 2023 ). Also, they acknowledge the value of astronomical ODS practices for scientific research and the whole scientific community, which makes them devote themselves to such practices (e.g., P8, P12). Hence, for them, extrinsic principles (e.g., FAIR), policies (e.g., those from the Chinese government), or individual research outputs do not determine their ODS decisions and behaviors. As P11 said, he had learned and obeyed this tradition since he entered the field of astronomy. This finding in China corroborates Stahlman’s prior research, indicating that astronomers have a strong sense of duty to their research communities and the public (Stahlman, 2022 ). Still, we found it impressive because these Chinese astronomers adhere to ODS traditions, dismissing the government slogan “Write your paper on the motherland,” which is rare in other research disciplines (including ours) in China.
Second, many Chinese astronomers would evaluate the consequences of ODS. One evaluation lens is self-interest. For example, several Chinese astronomers (e.g., P6, P12) have pointed out that ODS can potentially increase individual research outputs and their academic reputation, which motivates them to do it. It is noteworthy that some Chinese astronomers increase research outputs through ODS, both in terms of their personal contributions and for the entire astronomy community. Their evaluation priority is their own data/paper citation over ODS practices. Another evaluation lens is reciprocity. Some Chinese astronomers (e.g., P1, P10) perceive that the data sharer and user roles in ODS among astronomers can be exchanged. An open data sharer can become a user, and vice versa, in different research projects and times. As P10 mentioned, many Chinese astronomers have received the benefits of ODS from other astronomers when they lacked data or resources. As a result, they aspire to contribute to the community by providing opportunities and resources for fellow astronomers who face challenges similar to those they did previously. Thus, they adopt ODS in a respectful manner, hoping to receive the same treatment in the future. Abele-Brehm et al.’s study has revealed that researchers tended to conduct ODS out of reward promises (Abele-Brehm et al., 2019 ). Our findings complement it by differentiating self-interest-oriented and reciprocity-oriented rewards from ODS.
Third, some Chinese astronomers’ choice of ODS can be interpreted as contractual. Without ODS, they cannot receive government funding or get their research proposal accepted, which may impede their research progress and contribution. This finding corroborates Zuiderwijk and Spiers’ research, highlighting the significance of resource constraints and individual expectations benefits, which they could get extra citation or potential collaboration opportunities as essential motivators for ODS in astronomy (Zuiderwijk and Spiers, 2019 ). Furthermore, the development of modern astronomy in China is relatively retarded compared to the U.S. or European counterparts. The Chinese government sponsors most astronomical projects with public funding, hoping to enhance Chinese astronomy through centralized power and resources. For example, in 2018, the Chinese government implemented a scientific data management policy mandating the sharing of research data generated by public funding (General Office of the State Council of China, 2018 ). Thus, Chinese astronomers in contract with government-funded telescopes must enact ODS.
We identified a few societal barriers to Chinese astronomers’ ODS practices. First, insufficient data rights protection during ODS may hinder Chinese astronomers’ enthusiasm or trust in conducting ODS. For example, P6 has raised the concern that some astronomical data policies are typically formulated by scientific alliances and only bind members within project teams. Thus, astronomers who do not belong to these alliances do not need to obey these policies. Moreover, P10 and P14 both complained that though they had contributed much data, time, and effort, some global ODS practices relied on verbal agreements, which often lacked enforcement and easily compromised their data rights in an international project. This insufficient protection of data rights may give rise to conflicts of interest among collaborating parties, discouraging subsequent data-sharing practices among Chinese astronomers.
Second, a data infrastructure that is weak in its usability and accessibility may deter some Chinese astronomers from choosing ODS. As P8 remarked, Chinese open research data infrastructures have not been well developed regarding data usability and accessibility, which pushes domestic astronomers to publish data via foreign open research platforms. This concern partly reflects the reality of the underdevelopment of data infrastructure in China, indicating that most of China’s domestic research data repositories have yet to establish licenses, privacy, and copyright guidelines. (Li et al., 2022 ).
Additionally, we found that a highly competitive environment could potentially trigger “Nei Juan” related to competing for publication priority, which could also affect Chinese astronomers’ ODS attitudes and behaviors. Specifically, the increasing emphasis on academic performance has led many Chinese researchers into a “weird circle” of self-imposed pressure to publish papers continuously. This phenomenon is exacerbated by the tenure system in top Chinese universities, which has significantly shaped researchers’ academic work and day-to-day practices (Xu and Poole, 2023 ). Thus, within the intensely competitive scientific landscape and the dominant evaluation system for paper publications, Chinese astronomers may potentially prioritize rapid paper publication over ODS because when scientific resources and academic promotions are scarce, data is invaluable to a researcher. As implied in P14’s quote, some Chinese astronomers may delay or opt out of ODS unless their data rights and research benefits can be ensured.
Apart from the individual and societal factors that motivate or deter Chinese astronomers’ OBS behaviors, we have identified two dimensions in the action strategies that influence their choice of ODS. These two dimensions are presented and interpreted in Table 3 .
First, some Chinese astronomers hesitated to ODS because they had to choose between domestic customs and international traditions in astronomy, which might influence or even determine some Chinese astronomers’ behaviors concerning ODS. For example, several Chinese astronomers (e.g., P11, P13) prioritized compliance with domestic policies over international ones in determining where and how to implement ODS (Zhang et al., 2023). Besides, as explained by P4, almost all Chinese astronomers receive national funding, which would influence their ODS behaviors due to national funding agencies’ requirements for project commitment and applications. China’s “dual track” approach emphasizing data openness and national security simultaneously requires researchers to obey the “Openness as the normal and non-openness as the exception” principle (Li et al., 2022 ). Meanwhile, open data governance and open data movement have gradually impacted government policies as various national security and personal privacy issues are emerging (Arzberger et al., 2004 ). Despite this, ODS policies or concerns about national security and personal privacy may not be suitable for astronomy because astronomy rarely involves security and privacy issues (as highlighted by P9 and P12). As the discrepancy between domestic and international policy environments widens, choosing different norms may pressure Chinese astronomers’ ODS behaviors.
Second, we found some ethical problems related to ODS from the language prerequisite or preference in Chinese astronomy. As mentioned by P12, language has become an entrance bar in Chinese astronomy because astronomy is sort of “aristocratic science” in the sense that English proficiency is a prerequisite for anyone or any institution that wants to participate in astronomy research and practices seriously. Consequently, there is no comparable citizen science project in China to Galaxy Zoo or Zooniverse in the U.S., and local or private colleges in China cannot afford to establish astronomy as a scientific discipline in their institutions because many people in Chinese citizen science projects or below-the-top institutions are not proficient in English. Related to it, as mentioned by P9, domestic journals about astronomy in China are unanimously regarded as inferior and not valuable enough for academic evaluation or promotion. This phenomenon in Chinese astronomy is distinctive from the other research disciplines in China, where domestic journals are not “biased” based on publication language.
Third, domestic astronomy projects obeying international propriety data period policies may exert extra pressure or restraint on Chinese astronomers to conduct ODS. For example, the LAMOST and FAST projects in China follow international conventions in setting their propriety data period and ODS policies in English. As a result, Chinese astronomers who are poor in English would confront logistic hindrances in harnessing these domestic astronomy projects to share their data, ideas, and publications in Chinese. If they want to implement international ODS via LAMOST or FAST, they must spend extra time, effort, or funding translating their data and ideas into English, which may affect their time and resource allocation in the other research activities within the proprietary data period, such as ODS. Hence, we surmise that this language obstacle for some Chinese astronomers could demotivate or discourage them from ODS.
Fourth, some Chinese astronomers may choose between personal development and scientific advancement regarding ODS. First, it may be due to the adverse effects of the Chinese academic promotion system on some astronomers. In China, universities and research institutions typically use publication lists to evaluate academic performance and promotion (Cyranoski, 2018 ). As P14 mentioned, competition for research publication has been growing in some areas of astronomy (e.g., burst source). Some Chinese astronomers may withhold ODS to prioritize their data rights and timely publication. It may also be interpreted by a prevalent phenomenon in the Chinese academy nowadays called “Nei Juan.” Consequently, some Chinese scholars, including astronomers, are pushed to be competitive or “selfish” to increase their research publications, citation metrics, funding opportunities, and data rights. Prior works have found that researchers’ data-sharing willingness tends to be low when perceived competition is high (Acciai et al., 2023 ; Thursby et al., 2018 ), and researchers’ intrinsic motivation gradually weakens when researchers’ organizations implement accountability measures (such as contract signing) and increasingly pursue performance-oriented academic research (Gu and Levin, 2021 ). These findings may also explain some Chinese astronomers’ hesitation about ODS.
Last but not least, astronomy is highly international, and ODS can encourage collaboration among astronomers from different countries. Nevertheless, as mentioned by P7, some collaborators may compromise their promises for data use, which disincentivizes data sharers’ willingness for continuous ODS. Astronomers, through the joint observations of multiple telescopes, can collectively identify the underlying reasons behind astronomical phenomena and thereby promote scientific advancement. However, with the impact of “Nei Juan” and the limitations of verbal commitments, some Chinese astronomers may find it challenging to choose between ODS and prioritizing their academic interests.
Many astronomers in Western countries may have taken ODS for granted to enhance astronomical discoveries and productivity. However, how strong such an assumption holds among Chinese astronomers has not been investigated or deliberated extensively. This may hinder international ODS with Chinese astronomers and lead to a misunderstanding of Chinese astronomers’ perceptions and practices of ODS. Thus, in this paper, we reported our findings from 14 semi-structured interviews and 136 open-ended survey responses with Chinese astronomers about their motivations and hesitations regarding ODS. Our study found that many Chinese astronomers regarded ODS as an international and established duty to obey or reciprocity to harness. However, some Chinese astronomers would also agonize about ODS for data rights concerns, usable and accessible data infrastructure preferences, and “Nei Juan” or academic promotion pressures. Synthesizing these findings, we summarize them as Chinese astronomers’ concerns and choices between domestic customs and international traditions in ODS. Despite the findings, our research has several limitations. First, we still need more data to test and generalize our findings about ODS to Chinese scholars in other disciplines. Second, we have not conducted a comparative analysis of perceptions, concerns, and behavioral differences among astronomers in other countries. In the future, we intend to address this gap by conducting a global study to provide a more comprehensive understanding of ODS in science.
Our research has several implications for future work. First, we advocate for empathy and compromise between domestic customs and international traditions in Chinese astronomy. Undoubtedly, developed and English-speaking countries have been dominant in science and research paradigms for a long time. On the positive side, such dominance has established various traditions, such as ODS in astronomy, which are respected and obeyed by many scholars worldwide, such as many astronomers in China. On the negative side, such long-standing scientific dominance may trigger a developing country’s domestic countermeasures or competing policies, which can agonize some domestic researchers and impede global ODS. For example, as we have revealed, some Chinese astronomers had regarded astronomy as an “aristocratic science” and screened out Chinese astronomers or citizen science participants who were not proficient in English. Future research can investigate further the power dynamics between international traditions and domestic customs in other cultures or research disciplines beyond ODS in astronomy.
Second, we suggest that the international astronomy community publish more inclusive ODS rules that consider the societal contexts of researchers from different countries with different cultural or language backgrounds. Efforts should be made to minimize the reinforcement of one’s dominant position in scientific research through ODS, and to develop more inclusive, sustainable, and equitable rules that appeal to more advantaged countries to join. This may be achieved by providing different languages of ODS platforms, translation assistance to draft collaboration agreements, and multiple options for international collaboration and communication among astronomers from different countries. In this regard, the CARE (Collective benefits, Authority to control, Responsibility, and Ethics) principles serve as a good example (Global Indigenous Data Alliance, 2019 ). Also, we propose that the Chinese government, academic institutions, and funding agencies be more globally leading and open-minded to stimulate ODS, not merely within the border but endeavor to become a global leader or at least an essential stakeholder to promote knowledge sharing and scientific collaboration.
Third, our research findings indicate that individual ethical perspectives among astronomers play a significant role in guiding their ODS practices. To start, reciprocity effectively enhances ODS regardless of the established or domestic research policies. Thus, we suggest that policymakers in China consider emphasizing more on the reciprocity benefits and build a collaborative effort across the scientific community. As the qualitative data from our findings revealed, collaboration benefits from ODS are highly motivating for Chinese astronomers. Still, we have identified concerns among Chinese astronomers. For instance, they have highlighted concerns about the limitations of verbal commitments for ODS within the proprietary data period, potentially engendering “free-riders” in research. Further, we noticed that some Chinese astronomers conduct ODS based on their respect for this tradition and obey it as their duty without considering external factors such as individual interests or community benefits. We posit that this ethical perspective is aligned with deontology. Therefore, we suggest that stakeholders of ODS, such as the scientific community, research institutions and organizations, and ODS platform developers, could propose specific norms or mottos regarding the ODS tradition in astronomy to stimulate astronomers’ voluntary sense of duty to conduct it.
Finally, since we found that some astronomers conducted ODS primarily for self-interests in academia, efforts should be made to ensure that the rights of researchers in astronomy are protected and that they do not bear any risks caused by others (e.g., data misuse, verbal breach of contract). Future research can administer surveys or experiments to explore how significantly these individual factors impact astronomers’ ODS behaviors.
The complete translated and transcribed data from our study is available at Peking University Open Research Data ( https://doi.org/10.18170/DVN/JLJGPF ).
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The authors acknowledge the support of the Beijing Municipal Social Science Foundation under Grant [No. 22ZXC008].
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Liu, J., Zhao, K., Gu, L. et al. To share or not to share, that is the question: a qualitative study of Chinese astronomers’ perceptions, practices, and hesitations about open data sharing. Humanit Soc Sci Commun 11 , 1063 (2024). https://doi.org/10.1057/s41599-024-03570-9
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A systematic review of the impact of emerging technologies on student learning, engagement, and employability in built environment education.
2. technology in education, 2.1. enhancing teaching methods and learning experience, 2.2. addressing industry demands and real-world applications, 2.3. improving employability and soft skills development, 2.4. research gaps, 3. research method, 3.1. the review process, 3.2. database and keywords, 3.3. study selection process with inclusion and exclusion criteria, 3.4. data analysis, 4. review results, 4.1. descriptive analysis, 4.2. thematic analysis, 4.2.1. commonly used technologies in be education, 4.2.2. enhancing student engagement through technology in be education, 4.2.3. improving learning outcomes with technology in be education, 4.2.4. enhancing employability skills through technology in be education, 4.2.5. challenges in implementing technologies in be education, 5. conclusions, 6. future research, 7. theoretical and practical implications, author contributions, data availability statement, conflicts of interest, nomenclature.
AEC | architecture, engineering, and construction |
AI | artificial intelligence |
AR | Augmented Reality |
BIM | Building Information Modelling |
BE | Built Environment |
CATs | computer-aided technologies |
DT | Digital Twin |
EV | Enhanced Virtuality |
GBL | gamification-based learning |
ICTs | information and communication technologies |
IoT | Internet of Things |
IVR | Interactive Voice Response |
MR | Mixed Reality |
PRISMA | Preferred Reporting Items for Systematic Reviews and Meta-analyses |
SLR | systematic literature review |
SV | Smart Vision |
VR | Virtual Reality |
XR | Extended Reality |
Click here to enlarge figure
Themes | Codes | Articles | Frequency |
---|---|---|---|
Technology and Student Engagement in BE Education | Improved students’ understanding, engagement, interests, and comprehension | [ , , , , , , , ] | 9 |
Increased students’ motivation | [ , , , , , ] | 6 | |
Better engagement in the design process | [ , , , , ] | 5 | |
Providing real-time experiences in safe settings | [ , , , ] | 4 | |
Interaction with virtual architectural details and understand spatial linkages | [ , , , ] | 4 | |
Facilitation of active learning | [ , , ] | 3 | |
Improved critical thinking | [ , , ] | 3 | |
Improved collaborative learning and teamwork | [ , , ] | 3 | |
Improved engagement with equipment | [ , , ] | 3 | |
Providing interesting and realistic learning settings | [ , ] | 2 | |
Improved comprehension and practical abilities | [ ] | 1 | |
Dynamic interaction with information | [ ] | 1 | |
Technology and Learning Outcomes in BE Education | Improved immersive and interactive learning experiences | [ , , , , , , , , ] | 9 |
Increased knowledge and skills | [ , , , , , , , ] | 8 | |
Improved learning experiences and environment | [ , , , , , , ] | 7 | |
Enhanced learning outcomes | [ , , , , ] | 5 | |
Improved visualization and understanding of construction processes and complex concepts | [ , , , ] | 5 | |
Increased safety training and education | [ , , , , ] | 5 | |
Enhanced students’ comprehension of structural elements | [ , , , , ] | 5 | |
Facilitation of construction methodologies | [ , , , , ] | 5 | |
Improved hazard identification | [ , , ] | 3 | |
Improved students’ academic performance and decision-making | [ , , ] | 3 | |
Self-directed learning resources and problem-based learning | [ , ] | 2 | |
Improved understanding of subjects, grades, and educational experiences | [ , ] | 2 | |
Improved both hard and soft skills | [ , ] | 2 | |
Ability to carry out a virtual exploration of construction sites | [ , ] | 2 | |
Improved spatial and graphical skills | [ , ] | 2 | |
Comprehension of challenging assembly processes | [ , ] | 2 | |
Integrating in-class demonstration | [ , ] | 2 | |
Ability to test ideas and receive immediate feedback | [ ] | 1 | |
Technology and Employability in BE Education | By equipping students with necessary knowledge and competencies, and more competitive in the job market by expanding their knowledge of cutting-edge technologies | [ , , , , , ] | 6 |
Challenges in Implementing Technologies in BE Education | Restricted access to resources, high costs, need for training, and requirement for a foundational understanding of usage | [ , , , , , , , , , , ] | 11 |
Complexity of implementation | [ , , ] | 3 | |
Poor integration with other design methodologies | [ , , ] | 3 | |
Faculty reluctance | [ , ] | 2 | |
Motion sickness | [ ] | 1 |
Emerging Technologies in BE Education | Articles | Frequency |
---|---|---|
Virtual Reality (VR) | [ , , , , , , , , , , , , , , , , , , , , , , ] | 23 |
Augmented Reality (AR) | [ , , , , , , , , , , , , ] | 13 |
Building Information Modeling (BIM) | [ , , , , , , , ] | 8 |
Gamification | [ , , , , , , ] | 7 |
Extended Reality (XR) | [ , , , , ] | 6 |
Mixed Reality (MR) | [ , , ] | 4 |
3D scanning | [ , , ] | 3 |
Drones | [ , , ] | 3 |
Interactive Voice Response (IVR) | [ , ] | 2 |
Computer-aided technologies (CATs) | [ ] | 1 |
Enhanced virtuality (EV) | [ ] | 1 |
Laser scanning | [ ] | 1 |
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Ghanbaripour, A.N.; Talebian, N.; Miller, D.; Tumpa, R.J.; Zhang, W.; Golmoradi, M.; Skitmore, M. A Systematic Review of the Impact of Emerging Technologies on Student Learning, Engagement, and Employability in Built Environment Education. Buildings 2024 , 14 , 2769. https://doi.org/10.3390/buildings14092769
Ghanbaripour AN, Talebian N, Miller D, Tumpa RJ, Zhang W, Golmoradi M, Skitmore M. A Systematic Review of the Impact of Emerging Technologies on Student Learning, Engagement, and Employability in Built Environment Education. Buildings . 2024; 14(9):2769. https://doi.org/10.3390/buildings14092769
Ghanbaripour, Amir Naser, Nima Talebian, Dane Miller, Roksana Jahan Tumpa, Weiwei Zhang, Mehdi Golmoradi, and Martin Skitmore. 2024. "A Systematic Review of the Impact of Emerging Technologies on Student Learning, Engagement, and Employability in Built Environment Education" Buildings 14, no. 9: 2769. https://doi.org/10.3390/buildings14092769
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Here are the key takeaways: A research gap is an unanswered question or unresolved problem in a field, which reflects a lack of existing research in that space. The four most common types of research gaps are the classic literature gap, the disagreement gap, the contextual gap and the methodological gap.
Review the literature: Conduct a thorough review of the literature related to your research question. This will help you to identify the current state of knowledge in the field and the gaps that exist. Identify the research gap: Based on your review of the literature, identify the specific research gap that your study will address. This could ...
A literature gap, or research gap, is an unexplored topic revealed during a literature search that has scope for research or further exploration. To identify literature gaps, you need to do a thorough review of existing literature in both the broad and specific areas of your topic. You could go through both the Introduction and Discussion ...
Conducting an exhaustive literature review is your first step. As you search for journal articles, you will need to read critically across the breadth of the literature to identify these gaps. You goal should be to find a 'space' or opening for contributing new research. The first step is gathering a broad range of research articles on your ...
Identifying the gap in the literature necessitates a thorough evaluation of existing studies to refine your area of interest and map the scope and aim of your future research. The purpose is to explicitly identify the gap that exists, so you can contribute to the body of knowledge by providing fresh insights.
Examples of literature reviews. Step 1 - Search for relevant literature. Step 2 - Evaluate and select sources. Step 3 - Identify themes, debates, and gaps. Step 4 - Outline your literature review's structure. Step 5 - Write your literature review.
Mapping the gap. The purpose of the literature review section of a manuscript is not to report what is known about your topic. The purpose is to identify what remains unknown—what academic writing scholar Janet Giltrow has called the 'knowledge deficit'—thus establishing the need for your research study [].In an earlier Writer's Craft instalment, the Problem-Gap-Hook heuristic was ...
Though there is no well-defined process to find a gap in existing knowledge, your curiosity, creativity, imagination, and judgment can help you identify it. Here are 6 tips to identify research gaps: 1. Look for inspiration in published literature. Read books and articles on the topics that you like the most.
Subsequently, a gap analysis was implemented, as it can be used to detect missing elements in any study, literature review, or program analysis [18]. To conduct the gap analysis, themes were ...
A literature review is a survey of scholarly sources on a specific topic. It provides an overview of current knowledge, allowing you to identify relevant theories, methods, and gaps in the existing research. There are five key steps to writing a literature review: Search for relevant literature. Evaluate sources. Identify themes, debates and gaps.
As a final note, remember that many gaps may be filled with secondary research; a new literature review that fills the gaps in the logic/structure, data/information, and meaning/relevance of your map so that your organisation can have a greater impact. Figure 3. Visualizing the gaps (shown in green)
The literature review for a gap in practice will show the context of the problem and the current state of the research. Research gap definition. A research gap exists when: a question or problem has not been answered by existing studies/research in the field ;
A literature review "is an essential feature of any academic project" ... increases researchers' ability to rigorously identify research gap s in literature review s.
Specifically in the context of doing and writing the literature review, you can identify a gap in any/all of the following ways: Look up papers that build on previous papers, be it by the same author/s or others. Find out what gaps the later papers have addressed, and if there are still any. On the same lines, you may also wish to go through ...
A literature review is a critical analysis and synthesis of existing research on a particular topic. It provides an overview of the current state of knowledge, identifies gaps, and highlights key findings in the literature. 1 The purpose of a literature review is to situate your own research within the context of existing scholarship, demonstrating your understanding of the topic and showing ...
A research gap is a question or a problem that has not been answered by any of the existing studies or research within your field. Sometimes, a research gap exists when there is a concept or new idea that hasn't been studied at all. Sometimes you'll find a research gap if all the existing research is outdated and in need of new/updated research ...
A formal literature review is an evidence-based, in-depth analysis of a subject. There are many reasons for writing one and these will influence the length and style of your review, but in essence a literature review is a critical appraisal of the current collective knowledge on a subject. Rather than just being an exhaustive list of all that ...
Identifying Gaps. If you do not find articles in your literature search, this may indicate a gap. If you do find articles, the goal is to find a gap for contributing new research. Authors signal that there is a gap using phrases such as: Has not been clarified, studied, reported, or elucidated. Further research is required or needed.
A literature review is an integrated analysis-- not just a summary-- of scholarly writings and other relevant evidence related directly to your research question. That is, it represents a synthesis of the evidence that provides background information on your topic and shows a association between the evidence and your research question.
Step 1: Find the relevant literature. Naturally, the first step in the literature review journey is to hunt down the existing research that's relevant to your topic. While you probably already have a decent base of this from your research proposal, you need to expand on this substantially in the dissertation or thesis itself.. Essentially, you need to be looking for any existing literature ...
Literature reviews establish the foundation of academic inquires. However, in the planning field, we lack rigorous systematic reviews. In this article, through a systematic search on the methodology of literature review, we categorize a typology of literature reviews, discuss steps in conducting a systematic literature review, and provide suggestions on how to enhance rigor in literature ...
Developing a Literature Review . 1. Purpose and Scope. To help you develop a literature review, gather information on existing research, sub-topics, relevant research, and overlaps. Note initial thoughts on the topic - a mind map or list might be helpful - and avoid unfocused reading, collecting irrelevant content.
A literature or narrative review is a comprehensive review and analysis of the published literature on a specific topic or research question. The literature that is reviewed contains: books, articles, academic articles, conference proceedings, association papers, and dissertations. It contains the most pertinent studies and points to important ...
As mentioned previously, there are a number of existing guidelines for literature reviews. Depending on the methodology needed to achieve the purpose of the review, all types can be helpful and appropriate to reach a specific goal (for examples, please see Table 1).These approaches can be qualitative, quantitative, or have a mixed design depending on the phase of the review.
There is a gap in current research on the impact of digitalization on performance. This systematic literature review (SLR) seeks to enhance our understanding of this field and provides a logical evaluation of existing contributions. It aims to review research on the way artificial intelligence impacts performance.
To this end, we conducted a tertiary study, which is a systematic literature review of existing secondary studies. These secondary studies are divided into two groups: one focuses on trustworthy AI and the other on trustworthy software. ... Researchers in these two areas originate from distinct research communities, leading to a significant gap ...
To share or not to share, that is the question: a qualitative study of Chinese astronomers' perceptions, practices, and hesitations about open data sharing
A systematic literature review is considered a powerful tool to highlight prominent and emerging trends and patterns of the current literature . Therefore, this research aims to address this research gap, highlight critical themes, and propose future research avenues for investigating new insights.