The Bill and Melinda Gates Foundation is a major player in health-related research. We’re very pleased to learn that the Gates Foundation is now requiring its grantees to publish their work in immediately available (aka Gold) open access journals. This policy doesn’t go into force until January 2017 but between then and now, Gates Foundation grantees are expected to publish in hybrid (partial) open access journals that make their content freely available 12 months after publication. Way to go, Gates Foundation!
October 20-24 is International Open Access Week
October 20-24 is International Open Access Week http://www.openaccessweek.org/!
Learn more about Open Access and why it matters to academics and researchers as well as students and libraries. Here is a great handout created by Professor Jill Cirasella, Associate Librarian for Public Services & Scholarly Communication, CUNY Graduate Center http://openaccess.commons.gc.cuny.edu/files/2011/05/OA-The-Very-Basics-Oct-2013.pdf (see attached as well).
Join the discussion and keep up with what’s happening related to Open Access on the CUNY Academic Commons. The OA @ CUNY blog http://openaccess.commons.gc.cuny.edu/ is a great place to start and the Resources link will lead you to other related sites on the Academic Commons. Interested in attending an event this week? See http://openaccess.commons.gc.cuny.edu/category/open-access-week/oa-week-2014/ for listings.
The library will be doing a faculty program and workshop on predatory publishing on November 11, 5-6:30 pm, Faculty Commons. Anyone with an .edu email address gets spammy emails about journals and conferences–these are usually from predatory publishers. Attendees will learn the hows and whys of predatory publishing, a small but alarming subset of all Open Access publishers. The workshop component will address how to identify hallmarks of predatory publishers. Please rsvp to Professor Keith Muchowski, kmuchowski@citytech.cuny.edu.
Faculty/Staff Workshop: Open Access For the Arts
Come enjoy wine & cheese with your colleagues at our Open Access Happy Hour!
Using or producing creative works online requires artists and scholars to work with a nuanced (and
complicated) copyright, license, and use guidelines. Find out ways to use public domain
and open access resources in your creative work, and how to protect the rights of artists
in online environments.
Our workshop will be held on Thursday October 24, 4:00-5:30pm in the Faculty Lounge, Atrium 632. RSVP to Prof. Bronwen Densmore at bdensmore@citytech.cuny.edu.
This workshop is being offered as a part of Open Access Week (October 21-27). For more information about open access publishing visit http://openaccess.commons.gc.cuny.edu/.
Faculty/Staff Workshop: What Are the Problems with Textbooks?
Why do students sometimes resist buying and reading textbooks? How is the landscape of textbook publishing changing, and how can we take advantage of new strategies and platforms to ensure that our students have access to high quality curricular materials? Come to this Open Access Week workshop to learn more about open educational resources! You’ll hear from faculty across the college who use these materials in their courses, and learn more about library resources and support for open educational materials.
Our workshop will be held on Wednesday October 23, 1-2pm in the Faculty Commons, Namm 227. RSVP to Prof. Maura Smale at msmale@citytech.cuny.edu.
This workshop is being offered as a part of Open Access Week (October 21-27). For more information about open access publishing visit http://openaccess.commons.gc.cuny.edu/.
Workshop Materials: Understanding Your Rights as an Author
If you couldn’t make it to our faculty workshop on Understanding and Protecting Your Rights as an Author during Open Access Week, never fear! Here’s a copy of our handout and presentation for you to share, use, and remix as you’d like.
Presentation
Handout
If you have any questions, please don’t hesitate to ask a librarian! We’re happy to help with any and all questions about open access publishing and strategies for keeping your rights as an author.
You Know What You Write, But Do You Know Your Rights?
The City Tech Library, in partnership with the Faculty Commons for Teaching, Learning, and Scholarship, is pleased to announce a workshop in celebration of Open Access Week!
You Know What You Write, But Do You Know Your Rights?
Understanding and Protecting Your Rights as an Author
When you publish a journal article, you sign a copyright agreement. Do you know what you’re agreeing to when you sign it? How can you find out a journal’s policy? How can you negotiate your contract to make the most of your rights as a scholar, researcher, and author? Come enjoy wine & cheese with your colleagues at our Open Access Happy Hour and learn how to preserve your rights to reproduce, distribute, and display the work you create.
WHEN: Tuesday, October 23, from 5:30-7pm
WHERE: Rm A632, Faculty Lounge, City Tech
Space is limited! RSVP to Maura Smale at msmale@citytech.cuny.edu.
Are Scholarly Journal Prices Too Scary?
What’s so spooky about today’s scholarly journal prices?
Take our open access quiz to find out what is scaring librarians and might scare you too!
In support of Open Access Week (October 24-30), our colleagues at the Brooklyn College Library created a Halloween-themed quiz about journal pricing.
The Open Access “Pretty Scary” Quiz is ready, don’t be scared to take it, or share it!
http://openaccess.commons.gc.cuny.edu/oa-quiz/
Mark Your Calendars for Open Access Week
It’s still a few weeks away, but the City Tech Library is already getting ready for International Open Access Week. Please save the date for two great faculty workshops we have planned:
Using Open Educational Materials in Your Courses
Tuesday, October 25, 2011
3:30-5:00pm
Rm A543, City Tech Library (Atrium Building)
High-quality open access curricular materials are increasingly available online, and can provide an alternative to traditionally-published, high-priced textbooks. In this workshop we’ll discuss strategies for incorporating freely-available open access and public domain resources into your courses. Bring your syllabus or assignment and we will work together to add resources to your course website on Blackboard, the City Tech OpenLab, or other online platforms.
Coffee & cookies will be served.
Open Access Happy Hour: Your Rights as an Author
Wednesday, October 26, 2011
5:30-7:00pm
Rm A632, Faculty Lounge (Atrium Building)
You know what you write, but do you know your rights? Copyright is a bundle of rights that apply to work you produce in any medium. How can you choose a publisher and negotiate your contracts to make the most of your rights as a scholar, researcher, author, and creator? Come enjoy wine & cheese with your colleagues and learn how to preserve your rights to reproduce, distribute, and display the work you create.
Why Share Open Educational Resources?
reposted in the original source’s entirety: http://collegeopentextbooks.org/blog/?p=566
Why would anyone want to share their course, their best ideas, their intellectual property?
Why would someone openly license their digital work with a creative commons license? According to Hilton and Wiley (2010), there are four common reasons people might be motivated to share their educational resources:
Receive Increased Exposure: sharing your work openly online allows access to many more people
― Lawrence Lessig published his book Free Culture in 2004. Although the book has sold tens of thousands copies, the free digital version has been downloaded several hundred thousand times. Perhaps more importantly, it has been translated into seven different languages, audio versions are freely available, and it has been put into sixteen different file formats. All of these translations and format changes are freely available for others to download.‖ (p. 6).
Give New Life to Out-of-Print Works: openly licensed works never go out of print
― A significant problem in the publishing world relates to orphan books (Boyle, 2008). These are books that are out-of-print, and the copyright owner of the books cannot easily be identified. As time passes the out-of-print book becomes increasingly unavailable, as publishers merge and authors change locations, it can become impossible to locate‖ (p. 7).
Improve the Quality of Educational Resources: when resources are “open” and can be reused, redistributed, revised and remixed … they can get better over time
― When an educational resource is published openly it may bring about the mechanisms of peer review (Wiley, 2009). If people know their educational resource will be viewed by others they might desire to make it better than they ordinarily would. In addition, as others use the resource they may improve it and return the revised version to the creator, who then benefits from the improvement‖ (p. 8).
― Openness has a tendency to lead to better material used in courses not only because faculty can build on other open resources, but simply because teachers can more easily see what other teachers are doing. Just as observing others teach has been shown to improve teaching (Elmore, 1997), observing the educational resources that others use in the classroom may also improves teaching. Thus OERs benefit both the teachers‖ (p. 8).
Do Some Good: sharing educational resources helps people around the world access a higher education
To get a sense of what’s possible when we share open educational resources, read the Cape Town Declaration.
― We are on the cusp of a global revolution in teaching and learning. Educators worldwide are developing a vast pool of educational resources on the Internet, open and free for all to use. These educators are creating a world where each and every person on earth can access and contribute to the sum of all human knowledge.‖
Dr. Cable Green is Director of eLearning & Open Education, SBCTC.
He blogs about ―open issues at: http://blog.oer.sbctc.edu
