About Allegra Swift

Allegra Swift is the UC San Diego Library’s Scholarly Communications Librarian. She spends her days infusing research and scholarship support with critlib, digital citizenship, and digital literacy ideals.

International OA Week 2020 at UC San Diego and Beyond

The theme of 2020 OA Week is “Open with Purpose: Taking Action to Build Structural Equity and Inclusion.” Events held around the world during the week of October 19-25 will most likely be virtual and some even open to all – which is exactly how the UC San Diego Library will produce our offerings, online and open access! While we can not meet on campus in-person, we can take the opportunity to collaborate and share across campuses.

Join us for our virtual events described below, follow #OAWeek on Twitter to see the great things happening all over the world, and follow us on Twitter @UCSDScholCom where we’ll post recorded interviews of scholars (faculty, PhD and undergraduate students) talk about OER creation, publishing #openaccess, and the student experience in sharing OA scholarship.

Open Access Week 2020 banner from SPARC

Oct. 20, 2020 from noon – 1:00pm PST

“Predatory” Publishing: Addressing Bias and Avoiding Pitfalls

An open access virtual workshop for researchers given by librarians from University of California at San Diego, Temple University, the University of California at Irvine, and the University of California at San Francisco. See this page for a longer event description. Please see this page for recordings, slides, and resources.

October 22, 2020 from noon to 1:00 pm PST 

Building Structural Equity and Inclusion: Open Educational Resources and Affordable Course Materials

An open access virtual workshop for instructors given by UC San Diego Librarians; Allegra Swift, Laura Schwartz, and Dominique Turnbow. See this page for a longer event description. Please see this page for the slides and resources from the presentation.

Openness can be a powerful tool for building more equitable systems of sharing knowledge. Rebuilding research and scholarship to be open by default presents a unique opportunity to construct a foundation that is fundamentally more equitable. Yet today, structural racism, discrimination, and exclusion are present and persistent in places where openness is a core value. As a global community, it is important to understand that the systems and spaces of the present are often built upon legacies of historic injustice and that addressing these inequities is a necessity.  

We need to examine who these spaces and systems are designed for, who is missing, who is excluded by the business models we use, and whose interests are prioritized. As we work together to rebuild these structures, we need to commit to moving from conversations to concrete commitments and to hold one another accountable for making real progress.

Diversity, equity, and inclusion must be consistently prioritized year-round and integrated into the fabric of the open community, from how our infrastructure is built to how we organize community discussions to the governance structures we use. International Open Access Week is an important opportunity to catalyze new conversations, create connections across and between communities that can facilitate this co-design, and advance progress to build more equitable foundations for opening knowledge—discussions and actions that need to be continued, year in and year out. 

SPARC 2020 News August 31, 2020

“Predatory” Publishing: Addressing Bias and Avoiding Pitfalls

Oct. 20, 2020 from noon – 1:00pm PST

Find slides, recording, transcript here

#oaweek2020 @UCSDScholComm

An open access virtual workshop for instructors given by Librarians from University of California at San Diego (UC San Diego, Temple University, the University of California at Irvine, and the University of California at San Francisco.

“Mind the Gap,” CC BY (2.0) Elliott Brown from Birmingham, United Kingdom

“Predatory” publishing, especially in the health sciences, is an ongoing concern and it is essential for researchers to be able to recognize deceptive publishing practices. It is important, though, not to oversimplify what constitutes predatory practices. While using tools like “blocked” or “approved” lists helps researchers avoid predatory publishers, these lists can reinforce power dynamics that exclude marginalized, non-western viewpoints. Come to this session to learn how to balance publishing in high quality open access journals while staying aware of the biases in scholarly publishing. This event is geared towards researchers but is open to all.

Learning Objectives:

Following this session, participants will be able to:

1. Identify the characteristics of deceptive publishing practices in order to avoid their tactics.

2. Understand the inherent and hidden biases in the publication industry in order to challenge their own assumptions.

3. Differentiate the limitations of simplistic lists of deceptive journals and publishers.

4. Assess publishing venues using reliable criteria and resources while avoiding bias.

Related UC San Diego Library research guides:

Resources for choosing and evaluating journal publishing venues : Includes the library’s evaluation tool for making values-based decisions without bias..

Resources for evaluating book publishing venues

Related research and information:

Harrison W. Inefuku. “Globalization, Open Access, and the democratization of knowledge.” Educause Review (July 2016). [open access]

Harrison W. Inefuku and Charlotte Roh. “Agents of diversity and social justice: Librarians and scholarly communication.” In Open Access and the Future of Scholarly Communication: Policy and Infrastructure, edited by Kevin L. Smith and Katherine A. Dickson. Lanham, MD: Rowman & Littlefield, 2016). [open access]

Critical Race & Ethnic Studies 101 (Alamri): Privilege & Bias in Scholarly Publishing – a UC Merced Library course guide.

The Knowledge G.A.P. research and publications

Session recordings from the OA Scholarly Publishing 2020 Conference: Open Access in a time of Global Challenge

Scholarly Communication Institute 2019 projects and teams

[We’ll post slides and recordings in November 2020.]

Building Structural Equity and Inclusion: Open Educational Resources and Affordable Course Materials

October 22, 2020 from noon to 1:30 pm PST for International Open Access Week 2020, “Open with Purpose: Taking Action to Build Structural Equity and Inclusion.”

An open access virtual workshop for instructors given by UC San Diego Librarians; Allegra Swift, Laura Schwartz, and Dominique Turnbow.

Digital Book by EFF-Graphics / CC BY 3.0 US (https://creativecommons.org/licenses/by/3.0/us/deed.en)

Building Structural Equity and Inclusion: Open Educational Resources and Affordable Course Materials

An open access virtual workshop for instructors given by UC San Diego Librarians; Allegra Swift, Laura Schwartz, and Dominique Turnbow.

October 22, 2020 from noon to 1:00 pm PST for International Open Access Week 2020, “Open with Purpose: Taking Action to Build Structural Equity and Inclusion.”

While many of the benefits of using openly licensed materials remain constant, their importance is amplified as students are facing decreased bandwidth and access, and increased financial and emotional obstacles due to the pandemic. We will identify the issues of exclusive practices and discuss opportunities to improve our pedagogy to engage students and contribute to a more positive, holistic, and successful academic experience.

Registration link for this free online session. Join us as we explore strategies for ensuring your students can access and engage with the resources you need to support your instruction.

Benefits of Open Educational Resources (OER):

  • Immediate and sustained access. Students, faculty, and researchers are dispersed across the globe. OER do not require VPN or subscription access. Students will have access at the start of their course and well beyond for future reference.
  • Free to use. OER can be read, adapted, modified, and shared at no cost to the reader. Freedom from financial burdens are especially important and appreciated during this time of economic instability.
  • Adaptability. Many instructors are faced with loss of access, for a variety of reasons, to their teaching materials as we’ve had to rapidly shift to online teaching. Quality educational materials can be adapted to fit your needs if they are openly licensed.This workshop is even more important as we anticipate that we will remain in distance learning mode until at least the fall, and want to do all we can to ensure continuity of access and affordability for our students.

Related guides and research:

UC San Diego Library Guides: OER for Faculty and OER for Students

NAACP Advocacy to Promote Use of Open Education Resources Resolution

Equity & Openness : Perspectives from North American colleges and universities

COVID-19 Reflection: How OER contributes to our equitable education system

Everyday Social Justice: Using simple words to talk about equity and oppression

Registration link

Related UC San Diego Library Guides

Related research and information:

We’ll update this post with slides and recording after the event.

Citizen Science Webinar – June 10

Those of you interested in Citizen Science – register for the webinar on 10 June “Citizen Science At Universities: Trends, Guidelines and Recommendations”. To attend the webinar, please, register here.

ABOUT THE WEBINAR: 

A number of European recommendations – including the League of European Research Universities (LERU)’s advice paper “Citizen Science at Universities: Trends, Guidelines and Recommendations” – highlight the importance of creating a single point of contact for citizen science within the institution.

In this webinar, organised by LIBER`s Citizen Science Working Group, four speakers will share what they are doing to devise just the right solution through a three-fold approach: 

  • Current trends within Citizen Science at universities; 
  • A template for a Citizen Science Single Contact Point which your institution could start developing;
  • A snapshot of the forthcoming Research Librarian’s Guide to Citizen Science and the possible roles research libraries could adopt to move the citizen science activities forward.

Examples of UC San Diego Citizen Science Programs, Initiatives, and Resources

Graphic of Citizen Science Projects by Topic, CCBY 2.0 by Sepulte. Based on 2015 data.

For UC San Diego researchers and citizen scientists interested in collecting, curating, preserving, and communicating the data you produce – contact the UC San Diego Library Scholarly Communications and Research Data Curation Program.

Virtual Workshop for Integrating Open and Affordable Materials into Your Course

What was going to be an in-person workshop co-sponsored by the UC San Diego Library and the Teaching and Learning Commons on campus June 3, 2020 at 10:00am has now been moved online, like just about everything else. We will be sending out a link to register or contact us for access to the virtual classroom.

This workshop is even more important as we anticipate that we will remain in distance learning mode until at least the fall, and want to do all we can to ensure continuity of access and affordability for our students.

While many of the benefits of using openly licensed materials remain constant, their importance is amplified as students are facing increased bandwidth and financial obstacles.

Benefits of Open Educational Resources (OER):

  • Immediate and sustained access. Students, faculty, and researchers are dispersed across the globe. OER do not require VPN or subscription access. Students will have access at the start of their course and well beyond for future reference.
  • Free to use. OER can be read, adapted, modified, and shared at no cost to the reader. Freedom from financial burdens are especially important and appreciated during this time of economic instability.
  • Adaptability. Many instructors are faced with loss of access, for a variety of reasons, to their teaching materials as we’ve had to rapidly shift to online teaching. Quality educational materials can be adapted to fit your needs if they are openly licensed.

Workshop instructors: Allegra Swift, Dominique Turnbow, and Laura Schwartz. UC San Diego Library.

Workshop sponsors: UC San Diego Library Scholarly Communications and UC San Diego Teaching & Learning Commons Engaged Teaching Hub

Open Publishing Fest May 18-29, 2020

Join an existing session even or propose a new one even as the event is ongoing. Looking forward to learning from the international #OpenPublish community!

Open Publishing Fest celebrates communities developing open creative, scholarly, technological, and civic publishing projects. Together, we find new ground to share our ideas.

This is at once a collaborative and distributed event. Sessions are hosted by individuals and organizations around the world as panel discussions, fireside chats, demonstrations, and performances. We connect those points to bring them in conversation with one another and map out what’s next.

We seek to build networks of resilience and care for people working on new ways to develop and share knowledge.

Join us by proposing a session. Proposals will be considered on a rolling basis up to and throughout the fest.

About Open Publish and Open Publish Calendar

OASPA Call for Rapid Reviewers

Please review the message and Open Letter of Intent below, share this information widely amongst your scholarly communications networks, and, if appropriate, consider signing up as a rapid reviewer here.
– Bernie Folan, OASPA, Open Access Scholarly Publishers Association

CC-BY 2.0 #WOCinTech Chat- 40 #flickr https://flic.kr/p/Fv3zVg

OASPA has today posted an announcement on our blog about the launch of a new initiative which sees scholarly publishers working together to maximize the efficiency of peer review, ensuring that key work related to COVID-19 is reviewed and published as quickly and openly as possible.
The group of publishers and scholarly communications organizations — initially comprising eLife, Hindawi, PeerJ, PLOS, Royal Society, F1000 Research, FAIRsharing, Outbreak Science, and PREreview — is taking a collaborative approach to speed up the review process while ensuring rigor and reproducibility remain paramount and has issued an Open Letter of Intent with calls to reviewers, editors, authors, and publishers in the research community. 

The initiative is asking for volunteer reviewers with suitable expertise relevant to COVID-19, from all career stages and disciplines, to add their names to a “rapid reviewer list“. By doing so, these reviewers will be committing to rapid reviewing times, and upfront agreement that their reviews and identity can be shared among participating publishers and journals if submissions get rerouted for any reason.

Additionally, the group is asking all potential reviewers, whether they sign up to the rapid reviewer list or not, to help identify and highlight important and crucial COVID-19 preprints as early as possible, to optimize the limited time of expert reviewers who are subsequently invited to review the most important and promising research by a journal/platform. 

2020 Library Publishing Forum is now virtual and free!

#LPForum20
May 4-8 | noon to 5 PM Eastern Time

For the first time, the Library Publishing Coalition will host the Forum virtually. Registration is free and open to all, although workshops and experimental sessions will have a limited number of participants.

Library Publishing Forum virtual conference announcement more info bit.ly/virtual-lpf20

The Library Publishing Forum is an annual conference bringing together representatives from libraries engaged in (or considering) publishing initiatives to define and address major questions and challenges; to identify and document collaborative opportunities; and to strengthen and promote this community of practice.

Library Publishing Coalition, Library Publishing Forum

CFP for new OA journal on publishing ethics

The George Washington University Master of Professional Studies in Publishing program is soliciting papers for the Journal of Ethics in Publishing, a new, open access journal. The Journal of Ethics in Publishing welcomes articles, case studies, and conference presentations from scholars, students, and publishing professionals on topics including, but not limited to, diversity and inclusion, accessibility, peer review, open access, sustainability, publishing metrics, equity, and other aspects and issues of ethics in publishing. This online journal will be managed by students in the GW Publishing program. We envision publication of the journal commencing in Fall 2020. (post on the G Word blog April 7, 2020)

The Call for Papers is ongoing.

Unlatching @KUnlatched

10 title(s) have now been unlatched over the last 7 days, please see below the breakdown by collection. The following titles are now available on the Open Research Library (search titles here).

  • KU Open Services
    • Biomaterialbanken – Rechtliche Rahmenbedingungen
  • KU Select 2019: HSS Backlist Books
    • Becoming a European Homegrown Jihadist
    • Francophonie and the Orient
    • Heritage and Romantic Consumption in China
    • Medieval Saints and Modern Screens
    • Nazism and Neo-Nazism in Film and Media
    • Women in the Silent Cinema
  • KU Select 2019: HSS Frontlist Books
    • Frontier Tibet
    • Independent Filmmaking across borders in Contemporary Asia
    • Women and Power at the French Court, 1480-1565

In other KU news:

@ucsdlibrary contributes to @KUnlatched. Read #oa chapters and editions in LSP pubs by #ucsd linguists @ryanlepic, @emily_clemily, & the Dean of UCSD Social Sciences, Carol Padden!

Chapter 23 of On looking into words (and beyond): Structures, Relations, Analyses by Ryan Lepic and Carol Padden.
Theory and description in African Linguistics: Selected papers from the 47th Annual Conference on African Linguistics co-edited UCSD’s Emiliy Clem.