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Next Steps: Cultivating your Research for Open Access

Open access plays a part in leveling access to educational resources and higher education. Learn how the library helps UNO community members make steps towards providing open access materials that help to further the university’s mission through the provision of high-quality educational materials that are available for anyone.

Graphic image inspired by the illustration 'Benefits of Open Access,' CC Danny Kingsley and Sarah Brown

Inspired by the illustration 'Benefits of Open Access,' CC Danny Kingsley and Sarah Brown

During the last week of October, UNO Libraries celebrated Open Access Week with events culminating in a visit from esteemed copyright and open access scholar, Kevin L. Smith, Dean of Libraries at the University of Kansas. Open access is the free, immediate access to scholarship that is not hidden behind a paywall. Open access plays a part in leveling access to educational resources and higher education.

The open access services provided by UNO Libraries continue to be popular with the UNO community. The library is proud to aid UNO community members make the next steps towards providing open access materials that help to further the university’s mission of excellence, engagement, and inclusion through the provision of high-quality educational materials that are available to the UNO community and anyone with access to the internet.

Most of UNO’s open access material can be found on DigitalCommons@UNO, the university’s institutional repository operated by UNO Libraries. This serves as the global gateway to UNO scholarship as it can be accessed from anywhere in the world and contains journal articles, conference proceedings and much more. To date, UNO scholarship has been downloaded from this repository over 1.3 million times and has been read on every continent- including Antarctica.

When providing research materials open access via DigitalCommons@UNO, the UNO author has the opportunity to increase the readership of their scholarship and the impact they have within their subject discipline. DigitalCommons@UNO is also a recognized platform for graduates to share their own conference presentations or published journal articles with potential future employers and as they build their own professional or scholarly online profile.

During Open Access Week this year, the library held a competition encouraging DigitalCommons@UNO use, that asked entrants to return the Open Access Week postcards with an answer to the question, “What Does Open Access Mean To You?” The four winners of the competition are: Jeremy Baguyos- School of Interdisciplinary Informatics, Shannon Cummins- Department of Marketing and Management, Tammi Owens- UNO Libraries, and Jeanne Surface- Educational Leadership. This is what open access means to them:

  • “My articles that are either buried behind a paywall or trapped in print media, become easily available to the world, via open access.”
  • - Jeremy Baguyos
  • “Access to knowledge regardless of affiliation.”
  • - Shannon Cummins
  • “I can share quality resources with anyone at any time in any place!”
  • - Tammi Owens
  • “More resources for doctoral students working on dissertations.”
  • - Jeanne Surface

The contest winners’ illustrate the disciplinary diversity of the benefits of open access and their words provide motivation for continuing steps towards increased open access to UNO research and scholarship.

The contest winners’ illustrate the disciplinary diversity of the benefits of open access and their words provide motivation for continuing steps towards increased open access to UNO research and scholarship.

Interest in accessing and creating open access material continues to grow. The library welcomes faculty contributions of their research to DigitalCommons@UNO. Faculty can simply allow access to their DigitalMeasures publications list or submit their CV to the IR Coordinator. In addition, the library remains committed to providing financial assistance to faculty looking to publish open access through the Open Access Fund and Open Educational Resources (OER) grants.

Open access creates greater equality of access to educational resources and UNO Libraries is passionate about furthering this work. For questions about the Open Access Fund, OER grants or DigitalCommons@UNO, contact IR Coordinator Kate Ehrig-Page UNODigitalCommons@unomaha.edu.

UNO Libraries seeks to encourage faculty to publish their work open access through providing financial support. The Open Access Fund supports UNO faculty who wish to publish open access- by providing up to $3,500 to an applicant per year to cover article-processing charges required by the open access journal in which the faculty member plans to publish. The library is seeing a tremendous increase in demand for the Open Access Fund. After only four full months of the 2018-2019 academic year, the library is three applications away from equaling the total number of requests received during the entirety of the 2017-2018 academic year. If you would like to learn more about the library’s Open Access Fund, visit the Open Access Guide.

In addition to these services supporting open access, the library will be launching Affordable Content Grants that provide funding support for faculty who wish to design their own course texts. These Open Educational Resources (OER) help to limit the financial burden on students and combat the rising costs of textbooks. The library also provides information to faculty about where to access existing OER materials developed by other academics, rather than creating new OER class material. Tonya Ferrell, OER Coordinator, joined the library in 2018 and is available to collaborate with and assist faculty.