This week is Open Access Week all around the world, and from Open Knowledge’s side we are following up on last year’s tradition by putting together a blog post series to highlight great Open Access projects and activities in communities around the world. Every day this week will feature new writers and activities.
Open Access Week, a global event now entering its eighth year, is an opportunity for the academic and research community to continue to learn about the potential benefits of Open Access, to share what they’ve learned, and to help inspire wider participation in helping to make Open Access a new norm in scholarship and research. This year’s theme is “Generation Open”, and what better way to celebrate that then to highlight some of all the amazing work out there. This past year has seen lots in great progress and with the Open Knowledge blog we want to help amplify this amazing work done in communities around the world:
- TUESDAY, Jonathan Gray from Open Knowledge: “New Open Knowledge Initiative on the Future of Open Access in the Humanities and Social Sciences” (link)
- WEDNESDAY, David Carroll from Open Access Button: “New Open Access Button launches as part of Open Access Week” (link)
- THURSDAY, Alma Swan from SPARC Europe: “Open Access and the humanities: On our travels round the UK” (link)
- FRIDAY, Jenny Molloy from Open Science working group: “Uncovering the true cost of access” (link)
- SATURDAY, Kshitiz Khanal from Open Knowledge Nepal: “Open Access Week in Nepal” (link)
- SUNDAY, Miguel Said from Open Knowledge Brazil: “Nature-branded journal goes Open Access-only: Can we celebrate already?” (link) – and Celya Gruson-Daniel from Open Knowledge France: “Let’s imagine a creative format for Open Access” (link)
We’re hoping that this series can inspire even more work around Open Access in the year to come and that our community will use this week to get involved both locally and globally.
A good first step is to sign up at http://www.openaccessweek.org for access to a plethora of support resources, and to connect with the worldwide Open Access Week community. Another way to connect is to join the Open Access working group.
Open Access Week is an invaluable chance to connect the global momentum toward open sharing with the advancement of policy changes on the local level. Universities, colleges, research institutes, funding agencies, libraries, and think tanks use Open Access Week as a platform to host faculty votes on campus open-access policies, to issue reports on the societal and economic benefits of Open Access, to commit new funds in support of open-access publication, and more. Let’s add to their brilliant work this week!
Christian is the International Community Manager for the Open Knowledge global network and additionally volunteers with the Danish Open Knowledge Local Group. He has a background in media and culture entrepreneurship, community creation and hacktivism - and is a dedicated open-everything advocate.
