Open Access Podcast from Virginia Commonwealth University

From VCU LIbraries: VCU’s Center for Teaching Excellence (CTE) has posted a podcast about Open Access publishing, featuring an interview with Dan Ream of VCU Libraries. Dan and Jeff Nugent of the CTE discuss issues driving the practice of open access publishing and retention of author copyright in higher education, look at some examples of successful university projects, and briefly discuss what VCU is doing in the field of open access publishing. Links to the mp3 file and nine open access-related Web sites are provided at the CTE “What’s New” blog.

Who supports open access? Texas A&M University

Texas A&M University Libraries has been raising awareness of open access through a series of activities in support of Open Access Week 2010.  See who is supporting open access at Texas A&M by viewing photos taken at their OA Cafe which have been  posted on Texas A&M University Libraries Facebook page.

What Universities and Administrators Can Do to Promote Open Access

This 2-page brochure is a practical, succinct resource you can review and share for the promotion of open access on university campuses. One section suggests, as one option,

Adopt a policy: all theses and dissertations, upon acceptance, must be made openly accessible, for example, through the institutional repository or one of the multi-institutional OA archives for theses and dissertations.

Links to helpful articles to take steps towards these actions are also included. The brochure is a quick read.

Open access week in Canada

Resources available for open access week in Canada:

Free Animated Video - To celebrate International Open Access Week 2010, an event taking place from October 18 to October 24, the Canadian Association of Research Libraries (CARL) has partnered with the McGill University Library to produce an advocacy video and a webcast on the issues of open access and proposed copyright reform in Canada.

The roughly one minute animated video explains the concept of open access to students and faculty in a simple and fun format. The video is available in both French and English, can be placed on websites, displayed on monitors in libraries during open access week, and is available for free and is licensed under a Creative Commons license. It can be viewed at http://www.youtube.com/user/McGillLibrary.

Monday, October 18th, 2010. 12:00 – 1:30pm EST -

The OISE library at the University of Toronto is producing a webcast during open access week. It is free and accessible for everyone who would like to incorporate it into their open access week events.

Canada’s granting agencies have undertaken varying strategies to address open access. Panelists from CIHR, SSHRC and NSERC will share their agencies’ approaches to open access. Agencies with an open access mandate will describe their process and address issues that they encountered along the way. Those without a mandate will share how their agency views open access and describe initiatives that have been undertaken to support open access.

Panel members are:

Craig McNaughton, Director, Knowledge Mobilization and Program Integration, SSHRC;

Andrea Smith, Manager, Partnerships for Health System Improvement and Evidence on Tap, CIHR;

Monique Zaloum, Senior Policy Advisor, Policy and International Relations, NSERC

Moderated by Carole Moore, Chief Librarian, University of Toronto Libraries

To connect to the webcast, go to link: http://142.150.98.64/oise/ – on the day of the event. This page will link to the webcast. Participants will need RealPlayer to view the webcast.

Wednesday, October 20, 2010, 12:00 – 1:30pm Eastern Time -

In association with University of Toronto Libraries, CARL is sponsoring a webcast with Dr. Margaret Ann Wilkinson, professor of the Faculty of Law at the University of Western Ontario. The webcast – entitled, What Bill C-32 misses: Copyright in Academic Life – will take place on Wednesday, October 20, 2010, 12:00 – 1:30pm Eastern Time. The event is free, but restricted to a limited number of viewers. Registration will is available on a first come first serve basis. Please send registration requests to Diego Argáez at carlrpo@uottawa.ca.

Thursday October 21 from 11:00 am to 12:30 pm Pacific Time – As part of its planned events to celebrate International Open Access Week 2010 (October 18 – 24) the Simon Fraser University Library, in association with the Canadian Association of Research Libraries (CARL), is hosting a dialog and Q&A session with John Willinsky (Stanford University) and Andrew Feenberg (Simon Fraser University) on Thursday October 21 from 11:00 am to 12:30 pm Pacific Time. This event will be webcasted live at http://tlcentre.sfu.ca/broadcast/.

The theme of this event is A Critical Theory of Open in the Digital Era: Sous les pavés, la plage. Stepping for a moment beyond the open access question of the right to free online journal articles, Andrew Feenberg and John Willinsky will explore, in dialogue, issues surrounding the larger concept and spirit of open, as it tends to infuse seemingly utopian Internet developments, while drawing on their shared interest in the Critical Theory traditions of the last century.

Open Access Week 2010, University of Windsor

The Leddy Library at University of Windsor has a very nice article to introduce Open Access Week to its university community:

October 18-24 is Open Access Week 2010, an international celebration that hopes to broaden awareness and understanding of Open Access.

Most people are familiar with Open Source software, which is not only distributed for free, but distributed in such a way that the underlying code is open to be tinkered with. The idea is to democratize software so that anyone can potentially contribute.

The Open Access movement brings the same approach to content, encouraging researchers and creators to publish in free and open venues that contribute to the democratization of research. SPARC (The Scholarly Publishing and Academic Resources Coalition) is one key player in the academic world, bringing together partners from the research and publishing worlds to encourage greater openness of research publication.

It goes on to discuss how University of Windsor contributes to open access through its ETD program, open access journals, etc. It also describes the significance and importance of the author’s addendum to enable authors to maintain certain rights to their scholarship. Read the full piece for more information.

OA Week Challenge: Let’s Get Texas on the Map, ROARMAP

In honor of Open Access Week 2010, TxETDA would like to challenge all Texas higher education institutions to register their institutional repositories and ETD policies into the Registry of Open Access Material Archiving Policies (ROARMAP). ROARMAP is a database of international scope that displays the links of institutions, repositories and policies that have either proposed or approved open access mandates (institutional, departmental, funder, thesis, or mulit-institutional). But, it is only as good as the data entered by the institution.

Let’s get Texas on the map by registering in ROARMAP! Currently ROARMAP has 65 thesis mandates registered and only 2 of those are from Texas (UNT and Texas A&M). Registration is simple and quick. Just follow the link from the ROARMAP homepage.

A similar challenge has been issued by University of Southampton/EPrints. Let Texas lead the charge by responding to this challenge.

Open Access Week 2010 at Texas A&M

Texas A&M has just released its calendar of activities for OA Week 2010.  The announcement of the event explains,

The Texas A&M University Libraries will celebrate Open Access Week Oct. 18-22 with a series of campus-wide events aimed at faculty and students. In its fourth year, the international OA event is marked by symposia, exhibitions, parties, giveaways and contests. Open access has emerged as an alternative publishing model for making scholarly and research literature as widely available as possible.

“This is Texas A&M’s first year to participate in Open Access Week, although we’ve long supported its principles through various scholarly activities,” explained Gail Clement, Digital Services and Scholarly Communication librarian. “We want to spread the word across campus that open access literature is digital, online, free of charge and free of most copyright and licensing restrictions,” she added.

An information booth, the OA Café, will be set up at several campus library locations. Visitors can get information about open access and copyright, as well as pick up “Aggies for Open Access” buttons and register for Aggie-themed prizes. Guest experts will be available to answer questions at the OA Café.

In-class presentations will address special topics such as, “Is there Copyright in Second Life,” and the Thesis Office will co-sponsor a Creative Commons Clinic Oct. 18 in the Sterling C. Evans Library.

Texas A&M is a founding member of the Texas Digital Library. Its digital repository contains the scholarly output of the University including published articles, conference papers, dissertations and theses, faculty-authored textbooks, AgriLife publications and historical images from Cushing Memorial Library and Archives.

University of Oregon and Open Access Week 2010 Activities

See how University of Oregon is celebrating Open Access Week 2010. They have several great sessions on open access and copyright, negotiating publisher’s agreements, and electronic theses and dissertations. See more on their OA Week webpage.

Open Access Directory opens for Open Access Week event details

From https://arl.org/Lists/SPARC-OAForum/Message/5582.html

The Open Access Directory (OAD) is pleased to announce that it will once again serve as a comprehensive source of information about events celebrating Open Access Week (OAW).  This year’s OAW is coming fast — October 18-24, 2010.

Because OAD is a wiki, event organizers can enter their details directly.  If you’re planning an OAW event, please describe it on the wiki and help us spread the word about your event.  

http://oad.simmons.edu/oadwiki/Events_celebrating_Open_Access_Week

OAD is working with the SPARC-organized OAW site at Ning.  If you’ve posted a message about your event at the SPARC site, you can provide full details at OAD.  If you post your details at OAD, you can also publicize your event through the SPARC site.

http://www.openaccessweek.org/

* About the Open Access Directory

The Open Access Directory (OAD) is a compendium of simple factual lists about open access (OA) to science and scholarship, maintained by the OA community at large.  By bringing many OA-related lists together in one place, OAD makes it easier for everyone to discover them, use them for reference, and update them. The easier they are to maintain and discover, the more effectively they can spread useful, accurate information about OA. The OAD is hosted by the Graduate School of Library and Information Science at Simmons College and supervised by an independent editorial board.

OAD contributors must register before they edit, but registration is free and easy.

We are also thrilled to report that this summer OAD passed the milestone of one million visitors.  Thank you everyone for your support. 

Robin Peek and Peter Suber, co-founders of OAD

http://oad.simmons.edu 

What is Open Access?

In preparation for Open Access Week (October 18-22, 2010), I am sharing this excert from Duke University Libraries. See the full article for more information.

Open access (OA) in its purest sense is making literature free online without any fees or restrictions due to copyright or licenses.

The Budapest Open Access Initiative [http://www.soros.org/openaccess/read.shtml ] was the first to define open access as being publicly free on the Internet, allowing users to read, download, copy, distribute, print, search or link to the full text of articles without legal, financial or technical barriers.  Since their statement, others have followed and Peter Suber, one of the true experts on OA, provides an excellent overview and timeline on his Web site:  http://www.earlham.edu/~peters/fos/overview.htm