Keele Open Research Self-Assessment (KORSA) tool
Keele Open Research Self-Assessment (KORSA) is an innovative, researcher-centred tool that enables individuals to reflect on, evaluate, and strengthen their engagement with open research practices. Unlike existing frameworks that assess openness at the institutional level, KORSA was designed to capture progress at the level of the individual researcher. This approach offers richer insights into personal barriers, opportunities, and pathways for development, while also allowing the tool to be scaled up to track progress across Schools, Departments, and Faculties.
KORSA focuses on six key areas of open research: sharing of research design and materials, data sharing and management, sharing analysis code and software, preregistration, reproducibility and replicability, and transparent reporting and methodology. Each practice is described in ways that highlight the underpinning skills, as well as its relevance and value for both quantitative and qualitative researchers. Guided by a four-stage maturity framework (no action, emerging, evolving, sustained), KORSA helps users identify their current stage and understand what is required to move forward. Like open research itself, KORSA will continue to evolve through feedback and collective learning.
Please send any feedback on KORSA to Dr Masi Noor.
Researchers using mixed methods are encouraged to draw on the skills and resources provided in both the qualitative and quantitative sections.
