DESCRIPTION

Open documentation of creative methods is the digitising and public online sharing of materials relating to the methods used in the production of a creative practice output. Outputs are understood to be the completed creative work brought into being by creative practice methods of research, which may include many types of works in performance, fine art, digital art and media, music, and creative writing, among other creative practices. The processes towards their making may be documented in various media types, such as images, video, audio files (such as sound recordings), text and text descriptions, 3D models, score drafts, storyboards, sketchbooks, or primary and secondary resources, and will support or directly reveal the research process undertaken.

It can be difficult to tease apart the distinct open documentation of creative methods from the open sharing of creative practice outputs, because quite often documentation of the research approach is included in open portfolios or practice-led research articles in open journals. However, there are specific considerations surrounding the sharing of practice research 'data', a term problematic in itself. Guy et al. (2013) explore how the term 'research data', which has long been understood by scientific researchers, 'does not readily translate into a creative context'. Others have also criticised the design of the FAIR data principles around STEM-based presumptions of what constitutes knowledge creation and its operational and communication principles, including the idea that data produced is always digital by nature and is created and therefore owned by researchers (Gualandi et al., 2022; Tóth-Czifra, 2019).

Research data in the creative arts is not homogenous and standardised, but 'tangible and intangible, digital and physical, heterogeneous and infinite, and complex and complicated' (Garrett & Gramstadt, 2012, in Guy et al., 2013), and, where multiple interacting and interdisciplinary components are involved, 'highly complex and multidimensional' (Jensenius, 2021). Many attempts to address what research data is for creative arts default to descriptions of digital file types and output formats, rather than how it performs in understandings of research. Ultimately, a broad definition of creative arts research data is 'considered anything created, captured or collected' in the course of output creation. However, sometimes creative arts researchers are not in the habit of capturing or collecting anything regarding their process, unless prompted by institutional or policy requirements.

Creative practice researchers may also not be accustomed to documenting their practice in detailed ways as they are creating the work or output, though the tide is shifting. Within the UK context, the change in REF21 requirements for those 'significantly responsible for research' led to the inclusion of more practice-based research, and documentation of methods and practices towards the final output came under more scrutiny. Many of the 'portfolios' of research were created with documentation of both the output and the methods, alongside documentation of dissemination (performances, exhibition, etc) and the requisite 300-word statement. The packages of documentation are intended to show the 'originality, significance, and rigour' of a creative practice output, while also showing they also led to 'new insights, effectively shared' (REF 2021, n.d).

While research assessment exercises are only one aspect of what defines research, they do provide us with the phrase 'process of investigation', which is helpful in considering what may be used to document creative practice methods. The process of investigation within the creative arts complicates the traditional methods of research that do not include a practice element, which often begin with a defined research question, or set of research questions, proceed to apply a defined methodology and set of methods, and then find their answers. As Hope (2016) reminds us, practice research complicates 'these dynamics as the questions and methodology emerge through making, doing, and testing things out,' which mean processes employed will be 'iterative, improvised, and intuitive resulting in cyclical or reciprocal research dynamics', not a single-minded pursuit of answers. This approach 'does not mean the process is any less rigorous', rather that theory and practice are often intertwined at different points in the practice (Hope, 2016). This means documentation is not as simple as a bullet-pointed methodology document and appendix of supporting materials, and may include various, more complex types of documentation.

There can be difficulties and challenges around making creative practice research content open, which includes the supporting data that documents processes and methods. These can include 'issues surrounding informed consent, intellectual property, and the reuse of the research data' (Broadhead & Gonnett, 2025), which can lead to legal and ethical dilemmas, no matter how in favour of openness an institution or individual academic may be. While CC-BY licences are useful and widely used in setting permissions for reuse of creative practice data, there are still anxieties surrounding their potential misuse (Broadhead & Gonnett, 2025).

Where more openly permissive licences are conventionally applied to more standard, traditional datasets, creative practitioners will more often select the more restrictive option of CC-BY-NC-ND. This requires crediting of the original source, and bars any commercial or derivative reuse; essentially, this allows sharing the content freely, but nothing else. For those whose practice research is closely tied to their livelihoods, these extra precautions are necessary. Some research data cannot be shared for ethical, copyright and intellectual property reasons, particularly in design, where proprietary industries may be involved, or where participants are co-creators of the data. So while openness is becoming more favoured and practiced in the sharing of creative practice research, policy and institutional open data requirements in these disciplines need to fully consider disciplinary nuance and appropriateness, where degrees of openness, or partial openness, will be required.

However, there are clear benefits from opening the processes, and therefore the 'research data' of creative practice research, which 'provide substantial benefits for the wider research community' (Bulley & Sahin, 2021, 24). Redefining data 'in a productive way' entails a wide scope that includes 'all materials used and produced in arts and humanities research' (Gualandi et al., 2022). This must also include an understanding that 'the creative act is an experiment [...] which could not otherwise be explored by other methods' (Skains, 2018), and that 'traditional research paradigms and methods of inquiry may be inadequate to address the complexity of the way people engage with ideas, theories, information, and experience' (Biggs & Buchler, 2010, in Meece et al., 2017). Widening understanding of how research is conducted and how knowledge is created in creative practice disciplines will ultimately allow for more full and appropriate sharing of methods and data, at levels of openness that honour the essential nuances of each practice.

References

Broadhead, S. and Gonnet, H. (2025) 'Creative Dilemmas: Balancing Open Access and Integrity', Exchanges: The Interdisciplinary Research Journal, 12(3), 31–49. https://doi.org/10.31273/eirj.v12i3.1817

Bulley, J. and Sahin, O. (2021) Practice Research - Report 1: What Is Practice Research? and Report 2: How Can Practice Research be shared? Report. London: Practice Research Advisory Group UK (PRAG-UK). https://doi.org/10.23636/1347

Gualandi, B., Pareschi, L. and Peroni, S. (2022) 'What Do We Mean by "Data"? A Proposed Classification of Data Types in the Arts and Humanities', Journal of Documentation, 79(7), 51–71. https://doi.org/10.1108/JD-07-2022-0146

Guy, M., Donnelly, M. and Molloy, L. (2013) 'Pinning It Down: Towards a Practical Definition of "Research Data" for Creative Arts Institutions', International Journal of Digital Curation, 8(2), 99–110. https://doi.org/10.2218/ijdc.v8i2.275

Hope, S. (2016) 'Bursting Paradigms: A Colour Wheel of Practice-Research', Cultural Trends, 25(2), 74–86. https://doi.org/10.1080/09548963.2016.1171511

Jensenius, A.R. (2021) 'Best versus Good Enough Practices for Open Music Research', Empirical Musicology Review, 16(1), 5–15. https://doi.org/10.18061/emr.v16i1.7646

Meece, S., Robinson, A. and Gramstadt, M.-T. (2017) 'Engaging Researchers With the World's First Scholarly Arts Repositories: Ten Years After the UK's Kultur Project', New Review of Academic Librarianship, 23(2–3), 209–232. https://doi.org/10.1080/13614533.2017.1320767

Messer, S. (2025) 'Documenting Practice Research: Constraints and Opportunities', Journal of Engineering Design, 36(3), 405–438. https://doi.org/10.1080/09544828.2024.2427558

REF 2021 (n.d.) Home - REF 2021, Higher Education Funding Council for England. https://2021.ref.ac.uk/

Skains, R.L. (2018) 'Creative Practice as Research: Discourse on Methodology', Media Practice and Education, 19(1), 82–97. https://doi.org/10.1080/14682753.2017.1362175

Tóth-Czifra, E. (2019) 'The Risk of Losing Thick Description: Data Management Challenges Arts and Humanities Face in the Evolving FAIR Data Ecosystem'. https://shs.hal.science/halshs-02115505 [accessed 11 December 2025]