International Open Access Week is October 23-29 and the theme for 2023 is Community over Commercialization, raising awareness on the importance of communities having control of knowledge sharing systems so they can have access to the data and information they need to collectively fight climate change, inequality, and effectively enact public health policies. “Openness can create pathways to more equitable knowledge sharing and serve as a means to address the inequities that shape societies and our response to them.” (International Open Access Week, Theme). As you review the resources and information listed in this blog, the International Open Access community encourages you to consider the theme to this year’s Open Access Week and think critically about which approaches to open scholarship prioritizes the best interests of your local public and academic community, and which do not.
What is “Open…”?
There are a lot of “open” categories. Many are interconnected so the terms can get a bit confusing. Here are some of the terms and what they mean:
- Open Access– the free, immediate, online availability of research articles coupled with the rights to use these articles fully in the digital environment (Open Access, SPARC).
- Open Education– encompasses resources, tools, and practices that are free of legal, financial, and technical barriers and can be fully used, shared, and adapted in the digital environment (Open Education, SPARC).
- Open Data– is research data that is freely available on the internet, permitting any user to download, copy, analyze, re-process, pass to software, or use for any other purpose without financial, legal, or technical barriers other than those inseparable from gaining access to the internet itself (Open Data, SPARC).
- Open Science– a set of principles and practices that aim to make scientific research from all fields accessible to everyone for the benefit of scientists and society. Open science is about making sure not only that scientific knowledge is accessible but also that the production of that knowledge itself is inclusive, equitable and sustainable (Open Science, UNESCO).
- Open Source– is source code or software that is freely available for possible modification and redistribution. GitHub is a popular source code hosting site that facilitates access and sharing of open-source projects.
Open Access Activities Across IU
5 Day Open Access Week Challenge: IUI University Library is hosting a 5-day asynchronous online workshop that will guide you through tools and resources that they recommend for a community-first, open approach to knowledge sharing.
Each day, you will receive an email reminding you to read the day’s information and try out the activity. You should be able to read and complete the activity in about 20 minutes. The activities won’t make you an expert on a tool or platform, but they should help you determine whether it is worth investing more time and effort into using it.
Learning objectives:
- How to use ORCID to establish an online scholarly profile.
- How to use Zotero to manage a share-able bibliographic database.
- How to preserve and share your works with IUPUI/IU ScholarWorks.
- How to find free, reliable, trusted, evidence-based health information for your communities.
- How to interpret and leverage Creative Commons licenses when making or using educational works.
IU Bloomington Open Access Week Discussions: IU Libraries are hosting hybrid discussions during Open Access Week on the following topics:
Oct. 23, 11-12 pm: ORCID, Scholarly Visibility, and Open Access Publishing Support: An Introduction
Oct. 24, 2-3 pm: Open Access Faculty Conversations
Oct. 25, 10-11 am: Open Access Faculty Conversations
Oct. 26, 11-12 pm: The Nelson Memo: Public Access to Research and What This Means for Researchers
Oct. 27, 1-2 pm: Taking and Giving Back? Open Access, Generative AI, and the Transformation of Scholarly Communication
Oct. 27, 2:5-3:15 pm: Towards New Models for Scientific Publishing
Supporting Open Access at IU East
Big Ten Open Books: As a member of the Indiana University system, IU East benefits from The Big Ten Academic Alliance Library Initiatives (BTAA). As a participating member of BTAA, Indiana University gets access to BTAA’s Big Ten Open Books program, which connects participating libraries to fully accessible books from leading university presses. The open books are also openly licensed under Creative Commons licenses which make most of the titles free to reuse in any non-commercial way. All the books can also be downloaded as both PDF and EPUB3 files, meaning that readers can use them offline as well as online. They also don’t apply any “digital rights management” (DRM), so when you download a file, it won’t “expire.” The first collection available under Big Ten Open Books is the Gender and Sexuality studies collection.
Open Book Publishers: IU East Campus Library is also supporting Open Book Publishers (OBP), an award-winning, non-profit open access publisher. Run by scholars, OBP is the leading independent open access publisher in the humanities and social sciences in the UK committed to making high-quality research freely available to readers around the world. You can find the titles published by OBP in their catalogue or through the Campus Library.
The IU East Campus actively promotes open access journals and books to our faculty members, support open access publishing models, and educates library professionals and faculty on open education practices in higher ed. If you have any questions related to open access or open education, contact Assistant Librarian of Access & Technical Services Beth South at eabrockm@iue.edu. If you need assistance in researching any topic related to knowledge systems and community data, Ask Us! iueref@iue.edu or click here:
