The literature review

The constituent elements of a literature review

A literature review consists of different elements that allow elaborating a topic that will result in a state of the art.

Exploring and organising the literature on the studied topic

The description of the topic is the subject of a preliminary exercise to try to circumscribe the topic. It involves explaining the topic, its position in the research world (whether it is in line with or breaks from identified work, its eco-social or industrial relevance, whether it targets a new field, a contribution or a debate in an identified field…).

Priority is given to referenced articles and the most recent writings on the studied topic.

Analysing the selected sources

Tools that allow analysis and classification of articles must be used.

This involves:

identifying the arguments developed by each source and the conditions under which these arguments were elaborated,
discussing the limits and possible or established contradictions to these arguments,
pointing out research questions that may emerge.

Organising and discussing the results of the analysis

The state of the art should include:

an introduction presenting the object and content,
an explanation of the topic and its stakes,
a review showing the links, articulations, and tensions between the different elements collected and selected for the literature review,
a proposal opening on one or more problematics related to the topic,
a bibliography bringing together all the works addressed (and sometimes other series of works found but not exploited).

Tools for the literature

Writing

Open Science and open access

Contemporary research is increasingly part of an open science movement, which is transforming the practices of publication, data sharing, and peer review.

Principles of open science

Open science is built on several pillars:

Open access to publications — Research articles should be freely accessible. Two main routes: the gold route (publishing in open access journals) and the green route (self-archiving in institutional repositories such as HAL or Zenodo).
Data sharing — Research data should be made available as much as possible (FAIR principle: Findable, Accessible, Interoperable, Reusable). In design, this concerns image corpora, interview transcripts, video recordings, etc.
Reproducible science — Transparency of methods and analyses allows reproduction or verification of results.
Open evaluation — Some journals practice open review, where peer review reports are published alongside the article.

Impact on design research

Design research is particularly concerned by open science:

Research artefacts (prototypes, designs, annotated portfolios) can be shared in open access through platforms such as Figshare or Zenodo.
Qualitative methods (interviews, observations) require particular attention to anonymisation and consent before sharing.
There are numerous open access journals in design: She Ji, Open Design Studies, Design Science.

Funding body policies

Most funding bodies (ANR, Horizon Europe, ERC) now require a data management plan and open access publication of results. Plan S (2018) mandates that all publicly funded research be published in open access.

References

Mandel, A., & Rousso, A. (2022). Open science in design research. She Ji: The Journal of Design, Business, & Society, 8(2), 1–15.
Open Access Scholarly Publishers Association. (2023). Open access in the humanities and social sciences. OASPA. https://oaspa.org

The literature review