Open Access Week 2023: Resources Available and External Events Coming Up

International Open Access Week 2023: Community over Commercialization, 23-29 October, 2023

Open Access Week 2023 is an opportunity to join together, take action, and raise awareness around the importance of community control of knowledge sharing systems.

As part of Open Access Week our University of Westminster Press Manager, Philippa Grand, will be participating in a one hour webinar where Jisc and the Open Institutional Publishing Association will join forces to discuss how libraries can come together as a community and support open access publishing initiatives.
In this webinar, they will ask ‘what’s stopping us?’ and will consider the levers that are at our disposal, as a strong and active community, including library and publisher perspectives.
Support community led open access publishing: Help shape the future of scholarly communications Thursday 26 October, 2pm to 3pm Online Event, book now

University of Westminster Resources on Open Access and Open Research

Along with posts from the wider RKEO team, the Scholarly Communications team have contributed information on open access and open research to the RKEO blog, some of the highlights:

• The University of Westminster Press is an example of how we put community over commercialisation at Westminster. A short introductory video introduces the origins and work of our University Press, as well as considering some of its next steps and how you might get involved.
  See below for the webinar – Support community led open access publishing – which Philippa will be contributing to next week.
• In early 2023 the Scholarly Communications team held an information session on scholarly outputs and where to publish them. A brief summary of who to contact when (Holly, Nina or Philippa), along with a recording of the session, is available.
• As part of the 2020 – 2022 Open Access weeks we created a series of blog posts that are still relevant and can be accessed here.
• Our authors can now openly publish in many journals without being asked to pay an APC, under the ‘Read & Publish‘ deals we have with various publishers. More were added in 22/23, so you may wish to check again to see if relevant publishers have been added.
• Recordings of other events that the team have participated on may also be useful – Transitioning from Doctoral Researcher to Early Career Researcher, How to be an Open Researcher
• Ka-Ming Pang (Academic Liaison Librarian) brings the Library and RKEO together, including a very helpful LibGuide on Open Access Resources.

Join in on twitter using the official hashtag for the week: #OAWeek

Events & Resources from Other Institutions

Many institutions are putting on events open to all online. Here is a small selection of events and resources, which may interest to you:

Open and Engaged 2023: Community over Commercialisation: The British Library is delighted to host its annual Open and Engaged Conference on Monday 30 October, in-person and online, as part of International Open Access Week.

Support community led open access publishing: Help shape the future of scholarly communications Thursday 26 October, 2pm to 3pm Online Event, book now
Our University of Westminster Press Manager, Philippa Grand, will be participating in this one hour webinar where Jisc and the Open Institutional Publishing Association will join forces to discuss how libraries can come together as a community and support open access publishing initiatives.
In this webinar, they will ask ‘what’s stopping us?’ and will consider the levers that are at our disposal, as a strong and active community, including library and publisher perspectives.

Hot off the Press: shifting the dial towards more variety in open publishing at Sussex Tuesday 24 October 2023 3pm – 4.30pm, book now
A Library Open Research Seminar on the University’s community-led publishing initiatives on their Open Press. We’ll hear lightning talks from a range of Sussex collaborators who’ve published dynamic, boundary-shifting, Open Access research in a wonderful variety of formats.

University of Leicester Open Journals will be running two events where they have asked several of their editors to talk about the opportunities and challenges in running community-led open access journals:

Community journals for teaching natural sciences  
A discussion led by William Farrell (University of Leicester Open Journals) and Dr Cheryl Hurkett (Journal of Interdisciplinary Science Topics), Monday 23 October, 12:30-13:20 (UK Time): Teams link

University of Leicester Open Journals: rewards, challenges and future plans in community publishing
A discussion led by William Farrell (University of Leicester Open Journals), Prof. Amy Levin (Museum and Society), Dr Peter Lester (Museum and Society) and Dr Sweta Ladwa (New Directions in the Teaching of Natural Sciences), Thursday 26 October, 12:30-13:20 (UK Time) Teams link

International Open Access Week – online sessions open to all co-hosted by the University of Essex and the University of Derby
Join the global research community this international open access week to celebrate and learn more about open access through five fantastic online sessions co-hosted by the University of Essex and the University of Derby.

• SciFree – Revolutionizing academic publishing, reducing costs for libraries, and empowering researchers. With Abeni Wickham.          Monday 23 October, 11am to 12pm         Online event, book now
• Short Form Publications – Exploring challenges and progress in open access publishing. Panel discussion.    Tuesday 24 October, 10am to 11am        Online event, book now
• Open Science for Reproducible Research – Emphasizing transparency and ethical practices. With Malvika Sharan.          Wednesday 25 October, 10am to 11am  Online event, book now
• Open Access Books – Discussing benefits, challenges, and global access. Panel discussion.            Thursday 26 October, 11.30am to 12.30pm        Online event, book now
• Octopus – Innovative publishing model for collaboration and recognition. With Tim Fellows.            Friday 27 October, 2pm to 3pm     Online event, book now

An Introduction to Octopus
Join on Monday 23 October to learn about the platform and discover how different features of Octopus aim to solve existing issues within the research culture. Can’t attend? No worries, there is an alternative session on Tuesday 24 October. Can’t make it on the day? Don’t worry, by signing up to the event you guarantee a recording will be sent to you.