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Open Access (OA) is celebrated each year in October during OA Week. OA Week aims to bring awareness to the benefits of OA. It also helps encourage OA advancements and innovations throughout the global scholarly community. OA Week has been a worldwide event for nearly a decade, and it is organized by SPARC.

You might have noticed that our Talk Like a Pirate Day blog post mentioned OA Week. Our pirate-themed OA Week activities are coming up soon!

Mark your calendars for

• Monday, October 24, noon-3pm (for all):
  Enjoy our pirate-themed activities to win prizes!
• Tuesday, October 25, 1-3pm (for all):
  Attend our workshop to set up your online academic profiles for promoting your research (anything from class assignments to published works).
• Wednesday, October 26, 11am and 3pm (for faculty):
  Visit the OA, open educational resources, and SelectedWorks sessions in FCTL.

QUIZ!
One of Monday’s OA Week activities will include a short and piratey quiz.
Keep reading our OA-related posts to collect the answers!

What is OA?
OA refers to research articles, data, books, or any other scholarly output that is available for free, unrestricted access. The articles and other types of information can be viewed and shared without costs. This is in contrast to typical academic articles.

How is non-OA different?
Articles not published as OA usually require payment for viewing and have strict copyright guidelines. The copyrights or licensing agreements typically do not permit the readers (or even the authors) to share the article. The cost and other limitations can be problematic for researchers, libraries, or others interested in reading these publications. OA publishing eliminates those issues.

More information about OA and our OA Week activities will be coming soon. Meanwhile, check out the official OA Week website and our STARS page for more information.

Any questions about OA or OA Week? Please contact Sarah Norris, Scholarly Communication Librarian.

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