The opportunities of Open

Alison McNabAcademic Librarian (Research Support)

This work is licensed under a Creative Commons Attribution 3.0 Unported License

Outline

• Defining Open• Open Access• Open Educational Resources• Open Software• Some useful open stuff for CPD

What is Open Access (OA)?

• Digital/online• Free of charge for the end-user• Free of most copyright and licensing restrictions• Two main vehicles for delivering OA to research articles:

– OA journals – OA archives or repositories

• Expands readership – those outside academia can easily access your research and it can increase citations and impact

Green or gold?

• Immediate open access• Published version of the output• Often (not always) involves

payment of an Article Processing Charge (APC)

• Copy can go in a repository

• Normally the final accepted manuscript – “post print”

• Institutional or subject repository• No APC’s

• Can involve embargo periods

Drivers for open access

• Subscription costs

• Impact agenda– Citations– Impact of research beyond academia

• The “public good”

• Funder requirements

Access to research outside academia

• 75% of malaria professionals in Africa can’t get beyond abstracts1

• UK - Access to journal articles free at the point of use • Government - 17%2

• NHS – 33%2

• SME’s, Voluntary sector report access as poorSources1 Index to censorship http://www.indexoncensorship.org/2012/08/the-case-for-open-access/ 2 Finch Report 2012

Access to Research

• Access to Research gives free, walk-in access to over 10 million academic articles in participating public libraries across the UK.

• Students and independent researchers can now access many of the world’s best academic papers from leading publishers who have made their journal content available for free.

http://www.accesstoresearch.org.uk/

The Open Access advantage in research

• Increased visibility of academic writing • Increased access to research outputs:

– articles and conference papers– data

• Where to search:– http://eprints.hud.ac.uk/ – https://core.ac.uk/ – https://www.base-search.net/about/en/ – http://www.opendoar.org/

Open Access books

• Summary of Jisc activity: OA textbooks / monographs https://scholarlycommunications.jiscinvolve.org/wp/2016/01/13/open-access-books-jisc-work-in-the-area/

• Directory of Open Access books http://www.doabooks.org/

• Suber, P. Open Access (2012)• Lyons, R.E. & Rayner, S.J. (Eds) The Academic Book of

the Future (2015)

Open Educational Resources

• Open educational resources (OER) are any resources available at little or no cost that can be used for teaching, learning, or research. The term can include textbooks, course readings, and other learning content; simulations, games, and other learning applications; syllabi, quizzes, and assessment tools.

• http://www.informationliteracy.org.uk/teaching/oers/ • http://www.openeducationeuropa.eu/en/initiative • https://www.nottingham.ac.uk/xpert/

Open Software

• Open source software is software that can be freely used, changed, and shared (in modified or unmodified form) by anyone. Open source software is made by many people, and distributed under licenses that comply with the Open Source Definition.

• Open Source Initiative http://opensource.org

Other open stuff for CPD

Searching the LIS literature•e-LIS: an international digital repository for LIS http://eprints.rclis.org/ •Library, Information Science & Technology Abstracts (LISTA) http://www.libraryresearch.com/

Open Access LIS journals•Directory of Open Access Journals https://doaj.org/subjects

Click on the Bibliography. Library science. Information resources link and limit the results to Journals

Don’t forget your CILIP member benefits

Other open stuff for CPD

Webinars•UKSG http://www.uksg.org/webinars •Elsevier Library Connect https://libraryconnect.elsevier.com/library-connect-webinars

Twitter chat•#uklibchat (monthly discussion group taking place on Twitter, usually from 6.30-8.30pm on a Tuesday) https://uklibchat.wordpress.com/

Other open stuff for CPD

Podcasts•Jisc https://www.jisc.ac.uk/podcasts •Times Higher https://www.timeshighereducation.com/academic/comment/podcasts •10 book and publishing podcasts (Bookseller) http://www.thebookseller.com/futurebook/10-book-and-publishing-podcasts-327183

How can Open help me in my job?

Discuss in pairs