Open Access Week, October 24-30, 2016

October 24-30 is international Open Access Week. Universities, libraries, and other research institutions around the world are hosting events to promote the free, immediate, online availability of research articles combined with the rights to use these articles fully in the digital environment.

This year’s theme is “Open in Action,” asking us to take concrete steps to open up research and scholarship and encouraging others to do the same.

Grinnell College is committed to furthering open access to the research our community produces. In 2013, faculty approved an Open Access Resolution, allowing Grinnell College to disseminate worldwide, through the Digital Grinnell repository, their scholarly articles published in peer-reviewed journals. The resolution also encourages faculty and staff to make their curricular material and other scholarly publications freely available through Digital Grinnell.

What steps can you take this year to further open access to the valuable, transformative research that is created at Grinnell every day? 

The single most important thing you can do is deposit at least one of your articles in Digital Grinnell and encourage colleagues to do the same. You don’t have to publish in an open access journal to make your work open access. Many publishers’ agreements already allow for the deposit of final versions, proofs, or authors’ manuscripts into open repositories. Librarians can help you determine the status of work you’ve already published and help you get it deposited. Once in Digital Grinnell, it will be indexed by Google and Google Scholar, allowing other researchers to find, read, and cite it more easily. And unlike posting it on Academia.edu, depositing it in Digital Grinnell allows you to retain full rights for future re-use and guarantees long-term preservation.

If you are a student, consider speaking with your advisor about having the products of your MAP or other research project archived in Digital Grinnell.

If you’ve already deposited your work in Digital Grinnell and want to do even more, check out the 2016 Open in Action portal, where you can pledge to take additional steps to raise awareness about open access.

Do you have more questions about open access? The Libraries’ website offers additional background information and would be happy to talk with you about open access at any time.