Open Access literature is digital, online, free of charge, and free of most copyright and licensing restrictions. What it means to academia and research is that the primary barrier to access, price, is removed from the equation, allowing free access to peer-reviewed, scholarly works, books, and just about any other electronic print material with the designation. Want to learn more? Here is a quick introduction to open access.
Stony Brook University Libraries is celebrating Open Access Week, October 24 – 28, with a series of exciting events:
All Week
Far Beyond Barriers: Open Access Exhibit
View the digital displays and posters that illustrate, describe and contextualize open access and its value in removing barriers to research and scholarship.
Where: Central Reading Room
Time: Monday, October 24 – Friday, October 28
SUNY Open Access Week Webinar Series
As SUNY moves towards open scholarship, open publication, open education resources, and other data, it is essential that we have a solid understanding of the possibilities, potential, and impact of providing and utilizing high quality open access resources.
Where: Online
Time: Monday, October 24 – Friday, October 28
Monday, October 24
Wikipedia Edit-A-Thon
YOU can make Wikipedia better, more accurate, and more diverse! Join librarians Victoria, Jamie, Dana and Darren to learn how to: edit and enhance Wikipedia articles, discover and cite quality references, evaluate information, share open access articles.
The Wikipedia Edit-A-Thon is for students, faculty, ANYONE interested in contributing quality information on ANY topic and Wikipedia page!
Where: North Reading Room Innovation Lab
Time: 12:00 PM – 5:00 PM
Tuesday, October 25
“Open Access, Global Access and Research Futures” Open Access Symposium
Registration is free and open! Open Access, Global Access and Research Futures features visionary ideas from inspirational speakers. The symposium explores influential scholarly communication initiatives, including digital humanities, open educational resources (OER), open science and data visualization. The symposium brings open access front and center, with presentations and discussions on its value and meaning for academics, researchers, and librarians.
Where: Wang Center Theatre
Time: 8:30 AM – 5:00 PM
Thursday, October 27
Academic Commons: the open access scholarly repository
The Academic Commons is the new open access scholarly repository for Stony Brook University. Stony Brook researchers and faculty can freely share their own pre- or post-peer reviewed drafts of articles and other materials. In this session:
How to use the Academic Commons to discover and share work
Access usage statistics and other features that demonstrate impact of articles
Understand open access, and meeting a funded research public access mandate (NIH, NSF, etc.)
Join Head of the Center for Scholarly Communication Darren Chase for this hands-on demonstration and discussion of the new SBU Academic Commons.
Where: Center for Scholarly Communication
Time: 3:30 PM – 5:00 PM
Friday, October 28
Your Copyright: Increasing the impact of your research
Many publishers create significant barriers for authors who want to reuse or share their work, and for access to that work by others. Negotiating changes to standard publisher agreements can help authors avoid these obstacles, thus increasing options for authors as well as readership, citation, and impact of the work itself. Openly available articles have been shown to be more heavily cited.
In this session researchers and authors will:
learn about the advantages of retaining your copyright
review tools, techniques, and sites (i.e., the Directory of Open Access Journals) for discovering and evaluating high-quality open access peer reviewed journals
explore the new Stony Brook University Libraries Academic Commons
Where: Center for Scholarly Communication
Time: 3:00 PM – 4:15 PM
Open Access Week, a global event now entering its eighth year, 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.
“Open Access” to information – the free, immediate, online access to the results of scholarly research, and the right to use and re-use those results as you need – has the power to transform the way research and scientific inquiry are conducted. It has direct and widespread implications for academia, medicine, science, industry, and for society as a whole.
Open Access (OA) has the potential to maximize research investments, increase the exposure and use of published research, facilitate the ability to conduct research across available literature, and enhance the overall advancement of scholarship. Research funding agencies, academic institutions, researchers and scientists, teachers, students, and members of the general public are supporting a move towards Open Access in increasing numbers every year. Open Access Week is a key opportunity for all members of the community to take action to keep this momentum moving forward.
Support Open Access
Sign up and declare your support for free open access to research.
We encourage you to add your name or that of your department in support of the following statements:
Publicly funded research needs to be available to the public.
Open access is “the free, immediate and online availability of research articles and their supporting data, coupled with the rights to use this information fully in the digital environment”.
Open access to knowledge allows all researchers and citizens around the world to participate in the consumption and production of further knowledge in accordance with Merton’s laws of:
Universalism (all scientists can contribute to science regardless of race, nationality, culture, or gender) and
Communalism (the idea that scientific results are the common property of the entire scientific community).*
The considerable challenges facing humanity such as food security, pollution, climate change, energy production, water management and others are only resolvable if all the world’s researchers are able to share their findings with one another.
*From Robert Merton’s 1942 work “The Normative Structure of Science” Available as a chapter in: Merton, Robert K. (1973) “The Sociology of Science: Theoretical and Empirical Investigations” University of Chicago Press.