[Insight-users] OPEN ACCESS WEEK: October 19-23, 2009

[Luis Ibanez]

http://www.openaccessweek.org/about-the-week/

About Open Access week

October 19-23 will mark the first international Open Access Week.

Open Access Week is an opportunity to broaden awareness and
understanding of Open Access to research, including access policies
from all types of research funders, within the international higher
education community and the general public. The now-annual event has
been expanded from a single day to accommodate widespread global
interest in the movement toward open, public access to scholarly
research results.

Open Access Week builds on the momentum started by the student-led
national day of action in 2007 and carried by the 120 campuses in 27
countries that celebrated Open Access Day in 2008. 2008 organizers
SPARC (the Scholarly Publishing & Academic Resources Coalition), the
PLoS (The Public Library of Science), and Students for FreeCulture
welcome new key contributors for 2009: OASIS (the Open Access
Scholarly Information Sourcebook); Open Access Directory (OAD); and
eIFL.net (Electronic Information for Libraries), which will again
spearhead events in developing and transitional countries.

There are also partner organizations that are engaging their
communities in every corner of the globe and these are listed on the
main page of this site (SPARC Europe, SPARC Japan, DOAJ and BIREME).
If you want join them and help get the word out please contact
dokubo at plos.org.

This year, the organizers will highlight a growing suite of
educational resources that local hosts can use to design their own
programs on Open Access, for their respective audiences and time
zones. The OASIS project features the resources for researchers,
administrators, librarians, students, and the public — as well as
different OA awareness levels — that will be the centerpiece of the
2009 Open Access Week program.

These audience-specific resource lists will be supplemented by the
growing clearinghouse of educational materials available through the
Open Access Directory, which will again serve as the key index for
participating campuses and organizations on five continents. Through
the collaborative functionality of the two initiatives, videos,
briefing papers, podcasts, slideshows, posters and other educational
tools will be drawn from all over the Web to be featured during Open
Access Week 2009.

The organizers will also work with registered participants to develop
a variety of sample program tracks, such as “Administrators’
introduction to campus open-access policies and funds,” “OA 101,” and
“Complying with the NIH public access policy” that take full advantage
of available tools.  Scholars, students, libraries, publishers,
individuals, and campuses everywhere are invited to adapt these
resources as needed and to mark Open Access Week by hosting an event,
distributing literature, blogging, or wearing an Open Access t-shirt.

“After the success of last year’s Open Access Day, we’re delighted to
be co-organizing the first ever Open Access Week with our fellow
collaborators, again in conjunction with the anniversary of one of our
flagship journals,” said Peter Jerram, CEO for the Public Library of
Science. “We would ask our supporters to celebrate the fifth
anniversary of PLoS Medicine by spreading the word about Open Access
and getting involved in the week.”

“There’s no more certain sign of the momentum behind Open Access to
research than an annual, global celebration of this scale,” added
Heather Joseph, Executive Director of SPARC. “Occasions like this are
the best possible way to attract attention from busy faculty members
and administrators. It’s SPARC’s pleasure to be working with our
partners to realize the event once again this year.”