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Join the Iowa State University Library this October for a week full of Open Access (OA) events and workshops. Attendees will network with OA campus leaders, learn about available channels to publish work openly, and discover free services that can help guide them on the path to open scholarship. Whether you’re an OA all-star or just getting started, OA Week will equip you with a wealth of information and resources you need to succeed.

Check out the events below and mark your calendars! All events are open to faculty, staff, students and the public.

Cover of 그래서 더 좋은 것 같아 / Even Better. Iowa State University Digital Press.

Scholarly publishing—the production of journals and books—is a large industry with many universities, scholarly societies, and nonprofit and for-profit publishers involved. The groups with the most money and influence in this system favor research initiatives and academics from the Global North (primarily North America and Europe).

For the sixth consecutive year, the majority of scholarly outputs coming from Iowa State University have been published Open Access (OA), making these works freely available for anyone in the world with an internet connection. This rise in researchers making their work open is in accordance with Iowa State University’s land-grant mission to create, share, and apply knowledge to make Iowa and the world a better place. Further, it reflects the growing support available for OA at Iowa State University. 

Figure 1

A new campus wide mailing list to support open access - publishing, educational materials, and data - is now available. The mailing list will help connect ISU students and staff with peers and experts across campus. 

Join or manage your account at: https://mailman.iastate.edu/mailman/listinfo/open-access 

Libraries at the University of Iowa, Iowa State University, and the University of Northern Iowa announce a joint funding opportunity for the creation of Open Educational Resources (OER). This program is open to small teams of faculty, graduate students, and staff at any of the three public universities governed by the Board of Regents, State of Iowa.

The Journal of Librarianship and Scholarly Communication (JLSC) and Iowa State University Digital Press are delighted to announce that JLSC has selected the ISU Digital Press as its new publisher. 

The University Library helps researchers get access to articles, books, and other materials needed to complete research projects. Did you know that the library can help you complete and publish your work in innovative ways, too? We’ve outlined a few examples for brainstorming how you can benefit from library services.

1. Put an image on that data

Now in its fourth year of operation, the Miller Open Education Mini-Grant Program encourages instructor innovation in adopting and creating Open Educational Resources (OER), “educational materials (textbooks, syllabi, videos, software, and more) that are free of cost and access barriers, and which also carry legal permission for open use.” The implementation of OER at Iowa State University has saved students more than half a million dollars during the 2020/2021 academic year.

The Iowa State University Library has signed on in support of the Confederation of Open Access Repositories (COAR)'s response to the Data Repository Selection: Criteria that Matter initiative. This response addresses the concern that the Criteria that Matter guidelines put the interests of journals and publishers before those of authors and the institutions that own and manage data.

HOBOKEN, N.J. – January 14, 2020 – John Wiley and Sons, Inc. and Iowa State University today announced the signing of a three-year transitional open access agreement, among the first-of-its-kind in the United States. The agreement will advance Iowa State University’s goal to increase open access publishing and expand its open access offerings, allowing peer-reviewed articles to be read and shared immediately, and making important research broadly available. 

DataShare is Iowa State University’s open access repository for sharing, publishing, and archiving research data and is jointly funded by the University Library, Office of the Vice President for Research, and Information Technology.

Here are three reasons to make DataShare part of your plan for 2021:

The University Library works to support Open Access on campus and around the world in multiple ways. Five high-profile areas are listed here.

1. Open access publishing agreements

“There has never been such a rapid global collective effort to fight one disease” - Karen Grépin, Associate Professor of Public Health, University of Hong Kong (IHE) 

Before COVID (2017- Spring 2020) 

The theme of 2020 International Open Access Week is Open with Purpose: Taking Action to Build Structural Equity and Inclusion. Academic publishing is one of the primary ways in which new knowledge is shared with the world. By undergoing editorial and peer review, research and scholarship is evaluated for originality, quality, and accuracy before publication.  

Following the end of the spring 2020 semester, the library announced the implementation of a new interface for controlling access to library e-resources. The new system is called OpenAthens.