For a second year in a row, “Community over Commercialization” proved to be a powerful galvanizing theme for International Open Access Week, held on October 21-27, 2024. All around the world, advocates hosted creative events, shared research, and produced resources to help move open scholarship forward in the public interest. As we continue the work to advance open practices, we’ve gathered a series of highlights from the week to inspire and support further action.
Action, Collaborations, and Resources Advancing Open Access
SPARC expanded the collection of profiles detailing the commitment of organizations operating in the open space to “Community over Commercialization,” adding the voices of leaders from Public Knowledge Project, Redalyc, Erudit, Open Library of the Humanities, and the Knowledge Equity Lab. We will continue to update this popular series of featured profiles.
The European Federation of Academies of Sciences and Humanities (ALLEA) released a statement in support of secondary publication rights for scholarly communications, calling for a unified European Policy approach.
CLACSO released a book on the participation and conclusion of events that shaped the 2023 Global Summit on Diamond Open Access in Toluca, Mexico. The book was prepared by Redalyc and published by Redalyc-UAEM-CLACSO with presentations in Spanish and presentations in English.
Developing Institutional Access Publishing Models to Advance Scholarly Communication (DIAMAS) launched a project to collect stories of collaboration in Diamond Open Access publishing. The call includes details on how to share your story of successes and challenges.
Public Knowledge Project announced it has joined the Open Book Collective as a service provider member. OBC brings together OA book publishers, open publishing service providers, and knowledge institutions working to secure a more sustainable and equitable future for OA Books.
The Dutch Research Council NWO established a Diamond Open Access fund for academic journals that wish to flip from a subscription to an OA model.
OAPEN promoted a relaunch of its Open Access Books Toolkit as a resource to discover more about OA book publishing at any stage in the research lifecycle.
Coalition Publica, along with partners PKP and Erudit, published a supportive Statement on Diamond Open Access on October 22.
The European Commission promoted its guide on open peer review for the research community.
EIFL highlighted its guide and checklist for researchers and librarians on how to choose an appropriate journal for publishing research that builds on Diamond OA Standards (DOAS) and its Landscape Study of No-Fee Open Access Publishing in Africa.
Articles and Blogs
Kathryn Funk, program manager for PubMed Central, and Maryam Zaringhalam, data science and open science officer for the National Library of Medicine Office of Strategic Initiatives, published a piece online for the National Institutes of Health, “The Future of PubMed Central: Publicly Accessible, Digitally Equitable, University Valuable.”
COPIM published an article on what “community-led” means in theory and practice.
Dhara Snowden, textbook programme manager at University College London (UCL) Press, shared a blog post with her insights on the growing significance of open access textbooks
PLOS published a blog underscoring the importance of Open Access to Early Career Researchers.
An article, “Impact Beyond the Numbers: How Do People Really Use Open Access Books,” by Caroline Nemeheck was posted on the University of Michigan Library blog.
A study by IOP Publishing revealed varied adoption and barriers in open data sharing among physical research communities.
A Selection of Recorded Presentations, Events, and Interviews Addressing This Year’s Theme
Canadian Association of Research Libraries (CARL) held a webinar, “Strengthening Institutional Repositories through the Scholaris Network of Experts” on Oct. 21 and recorded here.
Cambridge University Press released a short video and resource page for researchers on routes to cover the cost of open access publication.
The Australian Open Access Strategy Group supported a week of events to educate and advocate the research Community on Open Access.
Open Access Peru hosted a series of discussions, now released as recordings, exploring open access and this year’s theme in the Peruvian context.
Creative Commons hosted webinars on Open Climate Knowledge and Data and a session on How to Choose a License to Amplify the Impact of your Preprints with recording here.
Melissa Hagemann gave a keynote address before the UN Dag Hammarskjold Library. Recording here.
The 3rd Annual MENA Forum for Open Research was held at the National Library of Qatar, featuring 4 days of programming centered on “Transforming Knowledge into Action.” Recording available shortly.
Penn State University Libraries hosted a talk by Sarah Lamden on “Data Cartels and Commercial Obstacles to Open Access.”
James Cook University held an Open Access Advocate Competition for all JCU Higher Degree by Research candidates to answer the question: How Does Open Access help the cause of Community over Commercialization. Winner and more here.
Note: The page may be updated as public event recordings are made available.