International Open Access Week 2023 is celebrated from October 23rd through October 29th, 2023. Open Access Week 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 with colleagues, and to help inspire wider participation in helping to make Open Access a new norm in scholarship and research.
This year's theme is Community Over Collaboration. This year’s theme encourages a candid conversation about which approaches to open scholarship prioritize the best interests of the public and the academic community—and which do not.
See the resources below to learn more about this year's theme and how the library is celebrating open access week.
In celebration of Open Access Week 2023, the A.T. Still Memorial Library held two workshops. The first workshop was on How to Write and Publish Case Reports; during this workshop, viewers will learn how to write a case report, how to use the CARE principles, how to publish your case reports using open access for free through the library, and how to find high-quality journals to publish with. The second workshop was on Sharing Your Work in Still ScholarWorks, presented by Marillla MacGregor; during this workshop, viewers will learn more about how to share your work in Still ScholarWorks, ATSU's institutional repository. Sharing your work in our repository is a great way to make your work open access, increase the visibility of your work, and showcase your work with the university.
Adopted by its 193 Member States, the UNESCO Recommendation on Open Science highlights the need to prioritize community over commercialization in its calls for the prevention of “inequitable extraction of profit from publicly funded scientific activities” and support for “non-commercial publishing models and collaborative publishing models with no article processing charges.” By focusing on these areas, we can achieve the original vision outlined when open access was first defined: “an old tradition and a new technology have converged to make possible an unprecedented public good.”
When commercial interests are prioritized over those of the communities that research seeks to serve, many concerning issues arise. Open Access Week provides an opportunity for individuals to discuss questions that are most relevant in their local context. These might include: What is lost when a shrinking number of corporations control knowledge production rather than researchers themselves? What is the cost of business models that entrench extreme levels of profit? When does the collection and use of personal data begin to undermine academic freedom? Can commercialization ever work in support of the public interest? What options for using community-controlled infrastructure already exist that might better serve the interests of the research community and the public (such as preprint servers, repositories, and open publishing platforms)? How can we shift the default toward using these community-minded options?