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

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.