About IRIS

Introduction

IRIS is a free, searchable, up- and downloadable collection of datasets and instruments, materials, and stimuli that are used to elicit data for research into first, second, and foreign languages. This includes research into the effectiveness of different types of experimental treatments and instructional techniques; linguistic development and how languages are processed and learnt; the contexts in which first and second languages are used and learnt; and stakeholders' (learners', teachers', policy-makers') opinions about language use and how these impact teaching and learning. IRIS now also hosts postprints of publications in the language sciences.

Who are we?


Emma Marsden IRIS Project Director	Luke Plonsky IRIS Project Director	Cylcia Bolibaugh IRIS Project Director	Junlan Pan IRIS Project Assistant

What is IRIS?

Instruments and data for research in language studies:

A sustainable, central digital repository
Up- and downloadable; freely accessible
Searchable across a wide range of parameters, e.g. instrument type; research area; participant characteristics (incl. teachers, learners, trainees); L1; L2; language feature(s); proficiency
Independent: Cross-institution, -country, -journal, -publisher, -funder
Funded by the Economic and Social Research Council and the British Academy as one of its prestigious 'Academy Research Projects'
Using the infrastructure of the University of York's Digital Library

Scope

The scope of IRIS is as wide as the language sciences, including

Language development (typical and atypical, mono-, bi- and multi-lingual, signed and spoken)
Language use (including intercultural communication and language for special purposes)
Language learning and loss (first, additional, artificial)
Language processing and psycholinguistics
Language perception and identity
Phonology
Grammar
Vocabulary
Pragmatics
Language teaching
Language assessment
Education & policy
... in diverse contexts
... with diverse research aims
... with diverse types of data

Rationale behind IRIS

The nature of instruments is a source of lively debate, e.g.

How to measure implicit vs. explicit knowledge?
How to elicit the construct of autonomy in language learning?
How to measure working memory?
How do contextual characteristics determine the usefulness of a particular instrument? E.g. eliciting teacher cognition amongst 'native' and 'non-native' teachers
How to elicit L2 processing vs. L2 competence?

Currently:

Researchers create and keep their own instruments
Maintenance and access to the instruments is ad hoc
Usually only brief descriptions with occasional short samples are available in published work
Contrast between: Complete data collection instruments vs. samples in appendix

IRIS:

Improves transparency
Increases availability of methods
Enhances research agendas across time and space
Facilitates replication, systematic reviews, meta-analyses

IRIS also facilitates evaluation and quality assurance, via:

Feedback and updates given on site by contributors and users
Wider usage of instruments
Full transparency

Submission

Online submission is available now: Submit to IRIS

Criteria for upload:

Instruments / materials / datasets must have been used to support a published (or 'in press') and peer-reviewed:
- Journal article
- Book/chapter
- Conference proceedings
- Approved PhD thesis

The IRIS team will, free of charge, digitise material that will be submitted to IRIS. This includes paper-based and audio-visual material. Please contact IRIS by email to make arrangements, OR post your materials, including your postal and email contact details, to the IRIS address. We will return all materials to you and send you the digitised materials.

Feedback features and quality assurance

Users can upload information about:
- their use of an instrument
- generalisability
- any problems encountered
- updated reliability stats
- new contextual information
Uploaders are encouraged to allow visible on-line comments - default option
- Or can request feedback to be sent personally to them
- Or refuse feedback
Uploader is informed when their instrument has been downloaded (Citations; Impact)
Downloaders are encouraged to provide some feedback

Ethical issues and copyright

Creative commons licensing
- IRIS encourages contributors to license their materials with: derivatives allowed; non-commercial; share-alike
Uploaders cite any sources they have used in the development of their instrument
The IRIS team can help to pursue copyright or permission requests

Supporters

Support from users

Center for Applied Linguistics, US (Donna Christian, President)
Committee for Linguistics in Education, UK (Graeme Trousdale, Chair)
Early Language Learning in Europe (Janet Enever, Director)
Higher Education Academy's Subject Centre for Languages, Linguistics and Area Studies, UK (Mike Kelly, Director)
International Association for Teachers of English as a Foreign Language (Herbert Puchta, President)
Language Learning Journal (Norbert Pachler, Co-Editor)
Modern Language Association's Committee on Information Technology, US (Barbara Lafford)
Research Special Interest Group of the International Association for Teachers of English as a Foreign Language (Anthony Bruton, Co-ordinator)
UKOLN, Centre of Excellence in Digital Information Management (Michael Day, Research and Development Manager and Team Leader, UKOLN, University of Bath, UK)

Support from research community

Letters from journal editors

Annual Review of Applied Linguistics (Charlene Polio, Editor-in-Chief)
Bilingualism: Language and Cognition (Ping Li, Co-ordinating Editor)
International Journal of Bilingualism (Li Wei, Editor)
Journal of French Language Studies (Florence Myles, Chief Editor)
Language Learning (Robert DeKeyser, outgoing Editor, and Lourdes Ortega, incoming Editor)
Language Teaching (Graeme Porte, Editor)
Language Teaching Research (Rod Ellis, Editor)
Language Policy (Kendall King, Editor)
Second Language Research (John Archibald, Co-Editor)
Studies in Second Language Acquisition (Susan Gass, Associate Editor)
System (Norman Davies, General Editor)

Letters from presidents of professional research associations

American Association for Applied Linguistics (AAAL) (Jeff Connor-Linton, President)
British Association of Applied Linguistics (BAAL) (Susan Hunston, Acting Chair)
European Second Language Association (EUROSLA) (Jean-Marc Dewaele, President)
International Association for Applied Linguistics (AILA) (Martin Bygate, President)
Language Learning and Teaching Special Interest Group (BAAL LLT SIG) (Suzanne Graham, Convenor)
Linguistics Association of Great Britain (LAGB) (Kersti Borjars, President)

Founders

IRIS was founded in 2011, by Emma Marsden (PI) and Alison Mackey (Co-I), funded by the ESRC and then, in 2012, by the British Academy.

The IRIS Advisory Group

Past Advisory Group Members

Project schedule

May 2011: Project began
July 2011: International researchers submitting their instruments (invited)
January 2012: Full upload facility live, to populate IRIS
Spring 2012: Search and download facilities live
...
December 2022: IRIS moves to a new cloud-based backend

Finally...

Please help to raise awareness by sending this weblink to colleagues
And please upload an instrument, dataset or postprint
- Approx. 15 minutes, to make IRIS a sustained and integral part of our community's practice

Scheduled Maintenance

Tuesdays from 08:00AM to 11:00AM GMT is the IRIS scheduled maintenance period. During this period we routinely apply system updates and the system may be unavailable.

Contact IRIS

Please contact us with any questions.

Search and download

Enter any text you wish into the search box below, such as an author, a type of instrument, a data collection method, a research area, a language, a linguistic feature, etc.

Click search to see everything in IRIS, and then use filters to narrow down your search

For terms you can search for, see the Search Help page. Multiple terms separated by a space are automatically treated as term1 OR term2 OR ... searches.