OU Celebrates International Open Access Week

Events to be held Oct. 24-28 include OU faculty showcase, talk by Harvard copyright advisor

After the summer 2022 announcement from the White House Office of Science and Technology that all federally-funded research must be made immediately publicly available and to celebrate the annual International Open Access Week, OU will host two events to raise awareness of the benefits of making academic research and creative work more accessible to the public.

Open Access Champions Showcase on Tuesday, Oct. 25, features four OU faculty members: Dr. Sandra Tarabochia, Associate Professor of English; Dr. Doug Gaffin, David Ross Boyd Professor of Biology; Dr. Carol Silva, Edith Kinney Gaylord Presidential Professor of Political Science and Co-Director of the Institute for Public Policy Research and Analysis; and Dr. David McLeod, Associate Director and Associate Professor of the Anne and Henry Zarrow School of Social Work. Each will share their experiences broadening access to their own work as well as the work of researchers around the world.

Tarabochia and McLeod are co-editors of peer-reviewed, open access journals hosted by OU Libraries.

Tarabochia started Writers: Craft & Context with senior writing fellow at OU’s Center for Faculty Excellence Michele Eodice.

McLeod, co-editor of Journal of Forensic Social Work, is also working to reduce course material costs for his students by adopting the open access Introductory Statistics textbook published by OpenStax in his Statistical Methods for Social Work course, for which he received an OU Libraries Alternative Textbook Grant.

Gaffin and Silva have taken advantage of the University Libraries Open Access Fund and funding from the Office of the Vice President for Research and Partnerships and Office of the Provost to publish their work open access in various venues.

Most recently, Gaffin’s 2021 article exploring the chemosensory neurons of scorpions is free to read in the journal Insects.

Silva published her 2021 book Trust in Government Agencies in the Time of COVID-19 open access with Cambridge University Press.

Courtney’s work for Harvard’s Office for Scholarly Communication has been instrumental to the success of Harvard’s open access policies. He also established a Copyright First Responders program that fosters campus-wide engagement with copyright and has grown into a national network.

Courtney will discuss how researchers can leverage their author rights to ensure compliance with open access policies like the new White House mandate and thereby reach a wider audience.

The Open Access Champions Showcase event is Tuesday, Oct. 25, from 2-3 p.m. in the Bizzell Memorial Library’s community room, LL118. It is sponsored by University Libraries and Center for Faculty Excellence. Find more information here.

Courtney’s talk is Oct. 27 from 10:30 a.m. to noon, also in the Bizzell community room. It is sponsored by University Libraries, the Office of the Senior Vice President and Provost, the Office of the Vice President for Research and Partnerships, and Faculty Senate. Registration is required.

For questions, contact Melissa Seelye, director of open initiatives and scholarly communication, at mhseelye@ou.edu.

Open Access at OU

The University Libraries Open Initiatives and Scholarly Community (OISC) unit is coordinating the Open Access Week activities. This unit in the University Libraries supports a range of Open @ OU services, including the SHAREOK institutional repository, open educational resources initiatives, and open access journal hosting. University Libraries also supports OU faculty and students through publication subvention funding, open access publishing discounts, and an Alternative Textbook Grant.   

University Libraries is coordinating numerous events in celebration of open access and open research practices this academic year, including a virtual panel discussion in celebration of International Education Week in November. Information about this and other upcoming events will be posted on the Open Initiatives and Scholarly Communication unit webpage.

More About Open Access and International Open Access Week

Open access refers to scholarly work that is digital, online, free of charge, and free of most copyright and licensing restrictions.

Organized by the Scholarly Publishing and Academic Resources Coalition (SPARC), Open Access Week is celebrated every year by individuals, institutions, and organizations around the world. It is an invaluable chance to connect the global momentum toward the open sharing of knowledge with the advancement of policy changes and the importance of social issues affecting people around the world. More information about this initiative can be found at www.openaccessweek.org.

Article provided by University Libraries.