Presentation given at the University of Huddersfield on 22 June 2016 as part of the Consortium Librarians' Day, attended by FE librarians supporting HE in FE. Discusses the opportunities presented by open academic content for study, learning & teaching, and software use. Also suggests some useful "open" resources for CPD.

1. The opportunities of Open
Alison McNab
Academic Librarian (Research Support)
This work is licensed under a
Creative Commons Attribution 3.0
Unported License

2. Outline
• Defining Open
• Open Access
• Open Educational Resources
• Open Software
• Some useful open stuff for CPD

3. What is Open Access (OA)?
• Digital/online
• Free of charge for the end-user
• Free of most copyright and licensing restrictions
• Two main vehicles for delivering OA to research articles:
– OA journals
– OA archives or repositories
• Expands readership – those outside academia can
easily access your research and it can increase citations
and impact

4. Green or gold?
• Immediate open access
• Published version of the output
• Often (not always) involves
payment of an Article
Processing Charge (APC)
• Copy can go in a repository
• Normally the final accepted
manuscript – “post print”
• Institutional or subject repository
• No APC’s
• Can involve embargo periods

5. Drivers for open access
• Subscription costs
• Impact agenda
– Citations
– Impact of research beyond academia
• The “public good”
• Funder requirements

6. Access to research outside academia
• 75% of malaria professionals in Africa can’t get beyond
abstracts1
• UK - Access to journal articles free at the point of use
• Government - 17%2
• NHS – 33%2
• SME’s, Voluntary sector report access as poor
Sources
1 Index to censorship http://www.indexoncensorship.org/2012/08/the-case-for-open-access/
2 Finch Report 2012

7. Access to Research
• Access to Research gives free, walk-in access to over
10 million academic articles in participating public
libraries across the UK.
• Students and independent researchers can now access
many of the world’s best academic papers from leading
publishers who have made their journal content available
for free.
http://www.accesstoresearch.org.uk/

8. The Open Access advantage in
research
• Increased visibility of academic writing
• Increased access to research outputs:
– articles and conference papers
– data
• Where to search:
– http://eprints.hud.ac.uk/
– https://core.ac.uk/
– https://www.base-search.net/about/en/
– http://www.opendoar.org/

9. Open Access books
• Summary of Jisc activity: OA textbooks / monographs
https://scholarlycommunications.jiscinvolve.org/wp/2016/01/13
• Directory of Open Access books
http://www.doabooks.org/
• Suber, P. Open Access (2012)
• Lyons, R.E. & Rayner, S.J. (Eds) The Academic Book of
the Future (2015)

10. Open Educational Resources
• Open educational resources (OER) are any resources
available at little or no cost that can be used for teaching,
learning, or research. The term can include textbooks,
course readings, and other learning content; simulations,
games, and other learning applications; syllabi, quizzes,
and assessment tools.
• http://www.informationliteracy.org.uk/teaching/oers/
• http://www.openeducationeuropa.eu/en/initiative
• https://www.nottingham.ac.uk/xpert/

11. Open Software
• Open source software is software that can be freely
used, changed, and shared (in modified or unmodified
form) by anyone. Open source software is made by
many people, and distributed under licenses that comply
with the Open Source Definition.
• Open Source Initiative http://opensource.org

12. Other open stuff for CPD
Searching the LIS literature
•e-LIS: an international digital repository for LIS http://eprints.rclis.org/
•Library, Information Science & Technology Abstracts (LISTA)
http://www.libraryresearch.com/
Open Access LIS journals
•Directory of Open Access Journals https://doaj.org/subjects
Click on the Bibliography. Library science. Information resources
link and limit the results to Journals
Don’t forget your CILIP member benefits

13. Other open stuff for CPD
Webinars
•UKSG http://www.uksg.org/webinars
•Elsevier Library Connect
https://libraryconnect.elsevier.com/library-connect-webinars
Twitter chat
•#uklibchat (monthly discussion group taking place on
Twitter, usually from 6.30-8.30pm on a Tuesday)
https://uklibchat.wordpress.com/

14. Other open stuff for CPD
Podcasts
•Jisc https://www.jisc.ac.uk/podcasts
•Times Higher
https://www.timeshighereducation.com/academic/comment/
podcasts
•10 book and publishing podcasts (Bookseller)
http://www.thebookseller.com/futurebook/10-book-and-
publishing-podcasts-327183

15. How can Open help me in my job?
Discuss in pairs