Looking for inspiration in planning Open Access Week events this October 24th – 30th? The Digital Commons Community has plenty of experience creating successful OA Week events and resources to educate faculty, students, and staff, highlighting IR services that help promote sustainable scholarly communication. Remember that expert advice and inspiring examples are at your fingertips in the Scholarly Communications Experts Directory.
Here’s what some of them are doing this October:
- The University of Central Florida is kicking off their week with true flair, hosting a piratical fest for Open Access Week called “If you’re going to be a pirate, be a legal pirate.” They invited the campus to join them in the week’s events which include hunting for treasure, a SelectedWorks profile building workshop, and presentations on open access publishing.
- UMass Medical School’s repository eScholarship@UMMS created this eye-catching flyer promoting their open access Journal of eScience Librarianship and highlighting the benefits of publishing in their OA journal, including exposure, innovation, and evidence of impact.
- The University of Kentucky Libraries is hosting a panel discussion about the use and impact of OERs titled “Open in Action: Open Education Resources Contribute to Student Success,” where they will discuss how OA publishing in the IR can address the rising costs of higher education.
- Past OA Week event archives chock full of good ideas can be found in the Scholarworks@UMassAmherst repository of the University of Massachusetts Amherst. In 2015 they focused on “the ways in which collaboration both inspires and advances the Open Access movement,” including a presentation (open access, naturally!) on “Open Access, Copyright, and Fair Use for Theses and Dissertations.” This year’s theme is “Open in Action,” where they are encouraging “all stakeholders to take concrete steps to make their own work more openly available and encourage others to do the same. From posting pre-prints in a repository to supporting colleagues in making their work more accessible, this year’s Open Access Week will focus on moving from discussion to action in opening up our system for communicating research.”
- If you need ideas for presentations and messaging, Isaac Gilman’s “Open Access in 15 Minutes (or less)” is a great place to start.
