Layers of openness

So, we are now a month into our new adventure and what a whirlwind it's been.  We are full on into MRes (Masters in Research Skills) assignments, Doctoral Training Workshops, academic communication training, supervisors meetings, and a stream of interesting events being pointed in our direction!  It's up to us to prioritise and make sense of it all.  After working independently for so long and having to provide and plan for every single aspect of my own professional development, it feels like being in a beautifully stimulating garden full of wonderful (free) fruit just there for the picking!  The only challenge is fitting in as much as we can....

Today, we went to an interesting talk by Sheila MacNeill, from Glasgow Caledonian University, known well at the OU.  She came down on the train especially to do a talk for our CALRG (Computers and Learning Research Group). Open Education: Research and Reality was a good title for a topical subject. This question makes me think about the reality of being open in our research as new / trainee researchers, and what that practically means. Sheila used the analogy of a Russian Doll with many possible layers of openness within each of us as individuals, and within our contexts. I do like the idea of of layers of openness.  I think it's good to consider.  We all love to make friendly supportive connections and spark ideas off each other, but how practicable is it to consider opening one's entire research process during the process, as it is being formulated (eg proposal, research questions, literature review, methodology and approach, findings, conclusions?).  Traditionally, this would be done at publication stage, after the process is complete. How feasible is openness as a new researcher?  I think it's an interesting question. I do enjoy the beauty in the colours of food, so here goes with the onion rings.  

The outer layers might be the conversational interactions we use to become part of our research communities - small talk, hints and tips, sharing ideas, resolving small difficulties etc. The inner layers could be our experiences, knowledge, beliefs and values which bring us to our 'core' of our research question - what we are being driven to find out.  The layers in the middle might be the process that we use to arrive at finding answers at the core.  How open should we / can we be with all of our process? What do you think?