International Open Access Week is October 19–26

An open lock with a background reminiscent of digital code background
Image by Jan Alexander from Pixabay

Welcome to 2020 Open Access Week!

Oct 19-26 is 2020 International Open Access week. This year’s theme is Open with Purpose: Taking Action to Build Structural Equity and Inclusion.

An initiative of the Scholarly Publishing and Academic Resources Coalition (SPARC), Open Access Week is presented as an opportunity for the academic and research community to learn about the potential benefits of Open Access, to share what they’ve learned with colleagues, and to help inspire wider participation in helping to make Open Access a new norm in scholarship and research.”

“Openness can be a powerful tool for building more equitable systems of sharing knowledge. Rebuilding research and scholarship to be open by default presents a unique opportunity to construct a foundation that is fundamentally more equitable. Yet today, structural racism, discrimination, and exclusion are present and persistent in places where openness is a core value. As a global community, it is important to understand that the systems and spaces of the present are often built upon legacies of historic injustice and that addressing these inequities is a necessity.” Open Access Week Advisory Committee

Learn more about open access and how the Libraries and University community is working to provide support on these issues:

General information about Open Access is available in this short video by SPARC.  This is a great video to show in your online courses!

Binghamton has our own campus-wide open access policy  passed by the University Faculty Senate, in December 2018. Waivers are available if you cannot publish your work as open access. If you need to request a waiver for your research there is a form available online. 

Looking for an open access journal to submit your work? The Directory of Open Journals (DOAJ) site lists over 12,000 journals and millions of open access articles. The number of open access articles being published is growing. A 2019 study from Piwowar et. al. has shown 31% of journal articles are currently open access and predict this will rise to 44% by 2025. Source: (https://www.biorxiv.org/content/10.1101/795310v1

Our campus-wide Open Repository @ Binghamton (ORB) allows you to submit and post your scholarly work online. This includes article manuscripts as well as data and audio formats.  See Amy Gay (aegay@binghamton.edu) for more details and questions regarding submissions.   

Locating Open Educational Research (OER) materials for creating online and in-person courses can be challenging. A great place to start is Binghamton’s OER LibGuide . SUNY also provides extensive OER support online. Looking for other faculty who are using open content in their courses. There is course-level information about who is currently using OER at Binghamton and the OER Course Designation Application is also available.  

Do you have questions about Open Access Week and open content? Contact Elizabeth Brown (ebrown@binghamton.edu) for more information.