open access

Open Access Week: Tuesday, October 23

Today’s Open Access Week event is a webcast of a talk at the Berkman Center for Internet and Society at Harvard: “How to Make Your Research Open Access (Whether You’re at Harvard or Not).” The speakers are well-known in the world of open access – Peter Suber and Stuart Shieber of the Harvard Open Access Project, the Berkman Center community, and the Harvard Office for Scholarly Communication . They’ll be discussing the Harvard Open Access policies and presenting concrete steps for how authors can make their work Open Access wherever they may be. We’ll be streaming the webcast in the DMC AV Circle 1 (the one with the matrix wall), from 12:30-1:30 – feel free to bring your lunch, we’ll be serving cookies and beverages! For the full schedule of Open Access Week events, visit http://library.northeastern.edu/openaccess.

Open Access Week: Monday, October 22

This week is the sixth International Open Access Week – a global event highlighting the importance of open access to information. We’re offering four events this week that focus on different aspects of Open Access. Today’s event is a webcast cosponsored by SPARC and the World Bank – it’s a 90-minute panel and Q&A moderated by Heather Joseph, the Executive Director of SPARC. The World Bank recently was named a SPARC Innovator for its open access policy and launch of an open data repository. The panelists are:
  • Michael Carroll, Professor of Law, American University and founding Board Member, Creative Commons
  • Matt Cooper, President, The National Association of Graduate-Professional Students
  • Maricel Kann, Assistant Professor, University of Maryland and member, PubMed Central National Advisory Committee, NIH.
  • Carlos Rossel, Publisher, The World Bank
  • Neil Thakur, Special Assistant to the Deputy Director, Extramural Research, National Institutes of Health (NIH)
We’ll be streaming the webcast in the DMC AV Circle #1 (the one with the puzzle-piece wall); refreshments will be served. It’s a 90-minute event, from 4:00-5:30 pm. You’ll also see a table set up in the lobby all week at lunchtime (11:30-1:30), staffed by me and some of our liaison librarians – stop by for lots of information about Open Access and free giveaways! Information about the full week is on our website at http://library.northeastern.edu/openaccess.

Open Access Week 2012 is coming!

In just a few weeks, we’ll be celebrating the sixth annual international Open Access Week, held this year October 22-26, 2012. As in previous years, we’re planning events and displays that will highlight the importance of sharing information freely, without restrictions like subscription costs.

Keynote Event: Breakfast with David Weinberger

Noted author and speaker David Weinberger will join us to celebrate Open Access Week on Thursday, October 25. David is a senior researcher at Harvard University’s Berkman Center for the Internet and Society, where he writes about networking knowledge and the effect of technology on ideas, business and society. He is the author of Too Big to Know, Small Pieces Loosely Joined, Everything Is Miscellaneous, and a coauthor of The Cluetrain Manifesto. This event is open to all – please click here for further details. Photo by Allan Shedlock Stay tuned for announcements of other Open Access Week events, including an opportunity to meet with representatives of open access journal publishers!

What is Open Access?

“Open Access to information – the free, immediate, online access to the results of scholarly research, and the right to use and re-use those results as you need – has the power to transform the way research and scientific inquiry are conducted. It has direct and widespread implications for academia, medicine, science, industry, and for society as a whole. Open Access (OA) has the potential to maximize research investments, increase the exposure and use of published research, facilitate the ability to conduct research across available literature, and enhance the overall advancement of scholarship. Research funding agencies, academic institutions, researchers and scientists, teachers, students, and members of the general public are supporting a move towards Open Access in increasing numbers every year.”

— SPARC, the Scholarly Publishing & Academic Resources Coalition

 Check out my other blog posts about Open Access!

Open Access supporters petition the White House (Updated)

[Update] On June 3rd, the petition supporters reached their goal of 25,000 signatures! This year, the Obama administration has been actively considering the issue of public access to the results of federally funded research. The administration is currently considering which policy actions are priorities that will it will act on before the 2012 presidential election season begins in earnest. Supporters of  open access to research results hope to demonstrate a strong public interest in expanding the NIH Public Access Policy across all U.S. federal science agencies. As a supporter of open access to information, I agree with them. On Monday, a petition calling for public access to federally funded research was posted on the White House’s “We the People” site.  If the petition garners 25,000 signatures within 30 days, it will be reviewed by White House staff, and considered for action. I’ve signed the petition, and so have over 7,000 other people as of today. For more information on open access issues and initiatives in the library, see the library’s information page, the subject guide, or this recent 3Qs with Dean Will Wakeling from news@Northeastern.

Celebrate Open Education Week – March 5-10, 2012

Today’s News@Northeastern featured a “3Qs” interview with our Dean of Libraries, Will Wakeling. The focus was open access to research, and Will specifically highlighted Open Educational Resources (OERs).  Development of OERs involves remixing resources that are openly available in order to create learning materials that don’t cost students anything. The average college student paid $700 a year on textbooks in the 2009-2010 school year; given that the price of college textbooks is said to be increasing at four times the rate of inflation, that amount is likely higher today. So, it’s no surprise that the need for affordable course materials is becoming critical. Legislation such as the College Opportunity and Affordability Act has placed limits on textbook publishers, but prices are still high. MIT was a pioneer in the OER field with their Open CourseWare system, which debuted in 2002. It offered anybody, anywhere, the opportunity to access MIT course materials for free – a radical concept at the time. Since then many other institutions around the world have also established OCW programs, as well as an international consortium. That consortium is now sponsoring the first global Open Education Week, “to raise awareness of the open education movement and its impact on teaching and learning worldwide.” Events are taking place around the world this week – many being hosted as online webinars. I encourage you to check out their schedule of events! How do you think Northeastern can play a role in the development and adoption of OERs? Leave your thoughts in the comments section…