Are you still brainstorming ways to celebrate Open Access Week this October 19-25th? The Digital Commons community has set the bar pretty high in recent years, which means you have some great ideas to inspire you. The following examples show what a fantastic opportunity this annual event is to educate faculty, students and staff about ongoing scholarly communication initiatives and to highlight IR services that help promote sustainable scholarly communication.
Brianne Hagen explained their hands-on approach at Hope College where they had “an ‘Open Access Sit-in’ where faculty were invited to drop by with their scholarship and deposit it into the repository. Librarians were available to answer copyright questions and troubleshoot technical queries. We also provided food and OA swag with a prize for the department with the most deposits.”
The UMass library highlighted the key role that students play as advocates for OA. Peter Suber gave a powerful keynote address to round out a series of great events you can revisit on the IR, including talks on Open Educational Resources.
Cleveland State University held a joint conference in Ohio with Wright State in 2014, and the talks are available for you to see in each respective IR, such as here in WSU. Caroline Whitacre’s SHARE (SHared Access Research Ecosystem) Keynote including streaming media is available in WSU’s CORE Scholar. We love the event’s motto from Cleveland State University: “If You Love Your Scholarship, Set It Free: Embracing Open Access at CSU.”
And, for a sweet finish, we can’t leave out the amazing OA logo cookies Janelle Wertzberger of Gettysburg College made with a cookie cutter printed on their 3D printer after Chip Wolfe at Embry-Riddle Aeronautical University made an STL file for them. Janelle spearheaded OA Week talks and festivities including “Did I sign my rights away? Copyright for authors.”
We can’t wait to hear what you come up with for your Open Access Week celebration. Send us a note at outreach@bepress.com and let us know how it goes!
