About OASIS

Outline

What are accessible summaries?

OASIS summaries are one-page summaries of published journal articles on any language-related topic. This includes areas such as language learning, language teaching, multilingualism, language policy, language and social justice, as well as clinical and forensic linguistics and language and the media. The summaries provide information about the study’s goals, how it was conducted, and what was found, and are written in non-technical language. Where relevant, they may highlight findings that could be of interest to practitioners or policy-makers. There are also many summaries of research that is purely theoretical /fundamental. The summaries are usually written by the author(s) of the original journal article. A number of others are written by others and then the author(s) of the original article edit and approve them. All summaries are of articles that have been published in peer-reviewed journals listed on an internationally recognised citation index, including the Social Science Citation Index, the Arts and Humanities Citation Index, or the Science Citation Index Expanded. You can check a journal's listing here. Please remove the 'Emerging Sources' filter on the search results page. We do not currently accept summaries of articles from journals on the Emerging Sources Citation Index.

Why do we need accessible summaries?

OASIS makes research into language related topics openly available and easily accessible to anyone who might be interested, because 1) research shows these findings do not reach stakeholders easily; and 2) research shows that academic publications are increasingly more difficult to read and understand for people outside the field. By establishing a culture of systematic production and dissemination of non-technical, open summaries, research is made available and accessible not only physically, but also conceptually to people outside academia.

Also, OASIS summaries may improve the visibility of the original article. A study by Marsden, Shepperd, Bolibaugh, and Andringa (2023) found potential benefits for engagement with the original article (e.g., views and downloads) when authors write OASIS summaries, relative to articles with no summary. This was replicated by McKinley et al. (2024).

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AI statement

AI-based applications may be used in the summary writing process. Any uploaded summaries will have been checked by a human for accuracy, coherence, and faithfulness to the original article. OASIS is aware that this is an area in which best practice is evolving. We will continue to review our practices and will update our guidelines in line with developments in the wider community.

Current OASIS team

  • Emma Marsden (University of York, project lead)
  • Cylcia Bolibaugh (University of York, project co-lead)
  • Sible Andringa (University of Amsterdam, project co-lead)
  • Louise Caruso (University of York, project associate)

Linked associations, organisations, and projects

Current and former collaborators and writers

Marta Antón, Volha Arkhipenka, Elizabeth Bailey, Catherine van Beuningen, Caro Blume (TU Dortmund), Claudine Bowyer-Crane, Jess Brown, Heidi Byrnes, Hsin-Ying Chen, Aline Godfroid, Amber Dudley, Natalie Finlayson, Suzanne Graham, Bimali Indrarathne, Heather Marsden, Ines Martin, Kevin McManus, Lisa-Maria Müller, Florence Myles, Lais de Oliveira Borges, Junlan Pan, Daniel Perrin, Caitlyn Pineault, Charlene Polio, Andrea Revesz, June Ruivivar, Fatma Said, Lieselotte Sippel, Louise Shepperd, Angela Tellier, Sophie Thompson, Natasha Tokowicz, Tessa Warren, and James Wagstaffe.

Initial OASIS team

Contact us

oasis@oasis-database.org

Acknowledgements

We gratefully acknowledge funding from an Economic and Social Research Council Impact Acceleration Award and the Higher Education Impact Fund, via the University of York, UK, a British Academy grant to fund a journal editors’ workshop in Chicago, March 28th 2018, as well as additional funding from the Department of Education and Research England.

***OASIS does not quality assure other resources and cannot link to them***

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