Letter to the Editor: Towards open data policies in phonetics:What we can gain and how we can avoid pitfalls

Abstract

It is not yet standard practice in phonetics to provide access to audio files along with submissions to journals. This is paradoxical in view of the importance of data for phonetic research: from audio signals to the whole range of data acquired in phonetic experiments. The phonetic sciences stand to gain greatly from data availability: what is at stake is no less than reproducibility and cumulative progress. We will argue that a collective turn to Open Science holds great promise for phonetics. First, simple reflections on why access to primary data matters are recapitulated and proposed as a basis for consensus. Next, possible drawbacks of data availability are addressed. Finally, we argue that data curation and archiving are to be recognized as part of the same activity that results in the publication of research papers, rather than attempting to build a parallel system to incentivize data archiving by itself.<br/