Open Access & Open Education
Open Access (OA)
As defined by the Scholarly Publishing and Academic Resources Coalition (SPARC), Open Access (OA) is the “free, immediate, online availability of research articles combined with the rights to use these articles fully in the digital environment.” SPARC argues that OA is “the needed modern update for the communication of research that fully utilizes the Internet for what it was originally built to do—accelerate research.”
Slow, expensive, and ill-suited for research collaboration, our current “closed” system limits the communication of scientific and scholarly research. This traditional system, which often locks important discoveries behind expensive paywalls, goes against the fundamental purpose of scientific inquiry in that it limits the exchange of ideas and slows the advancement of scholarship.
OA, which contrasts traditional publishing practices, helps make research publications freely available so anyone can benefit from reading and using research. This movement also encourages public engagement with research, which is often publically funded. OA is an aspect of the larger ‘open’ movement, which encourages the free exchange of knowledge and broadens access to resources. Many open-access journals publish their articles with a Creative Commons license.
Today, about 28 percent of peer-reviewed articles are OA, and this number continues to increase (Piowowar et al., 2018). To find OA journals, consider using one of these tools:
- Directory of Open Access Journals: “this independent database contains over 15 000 peer-reviewed open access journals covering all areas of science, technology, medicine, social sciences, arts and humanities.”
- Elsevier Open Access: “All articles in open access journals which are published by Elsevier have undergone peer review and upon acceptance are immediately and permanently free for everyone to read and download.”
- Open Access Journals: “This publisher hosts over 700+ leading-edge peer-reviewed Open Access Journals and organizes over 3000 International Conferences all over the world.”
- Oxford Open Journals: “Oxford University Press (OUP) is mission-driven to facilitate the widest possible dissemination of high-quality research. We embrace both green and gold open access (OA) publishing to support this mission”
- SpringerOpen: “The SpringerOpen portfolio has grown tremendously since its launch in 2010, so that we now offer researchers from all areas of science, technology, medicine, the humanities and social sciences a place to publish open access in journals.”
If you are interested in learning more about this topic, Paywall: The Business of Scholarship is a documentary that focuses on the need for OA to research and science:
SUNY Open Access Repository (SOAR)
The SUNY Open Access Repository (SOAR) is a centrally managed online digital repository that stores, indexes, and makes available scholarly and creative works of SUNY faculty, students, and staff across SUNY campuses. SOAR serves as an open access platform for those SUNY campuses that do not have their own open access repository environments.
Open Education
The Scholarly Publishing and Academic Resources Coalition (SPARC) states that “Open Education encompasses resources, tools and practices that are free of legal, financial and technical barriers and can be fully used, shared and adapted in the digital environment. Open Education maximizes the power of the Internet to make education more affordable, accessible and effective.”
Teaching “openly” means you are making some or all aspects of your learning environment available and accessible beyond the classroom. This may include adopting an open text or learning resource, or creating your own OER for, and even with, your students (open pedagogy). It can also mean establishing a set of open practices related to your course. You may license certain elements of your course materials (syllabi, presentation slides, assignment instructions, videos, etc.) with a Creative Commons license, and upload them to an OER repository, such as the SUNY Digital Repository (SDR).
Open Educational Resources (OER)
Open educational resources (OER) can be used by educators to supplement or build a course. In addition to being free of charge, OER are free to use and expand upon, following the terms of their licenses. OER offer a low- or no-cost alternative to traditional textbooks in a time when students have an increasingly difficult time paying for books, especially as textbook costs continue to become more expensive.
Most OER have certain defining features coined by David Wiley, as the 5 R’s:
- Retain: The ability to keep copies of the OER for yourself
- Reuse: The ability to use the OER content in a novel way
- Revise: The ability to make changes to the OER to suit your needs, or to keep it up to date
- Remix: The ability to use pieces of the OER and, if desired, to combine it with other OER
- Redistribute: The ability to make copies of the OER for others
As a result, OER are highly customizable for individual instructors and courses, allowing you to use a text that contains exactly what you need.
The Relationship between OA and OER
While OA and OER serve slightly different purposes, both are essential in reducing or eliminating the legal and financial barriers to education and the open exchange of ideas. Additionally, OA articles can be part of the mix of resources used in OER.
Open/Open-Enabled Pedagogy
Open pedagogy is the practice of having students contribute to the “knowledge commons” in meaningful and lasting ways, not just consuming from it. That is, through Open Pedagogy, students are engaged in the process of creating openly licensed material for assignments that can live on beyond the classroom, and may even be built upon. This can be a form of experiential learning with students demonstrating understanding through this process of creation. Open Pedagogy can be empowering, collaborative, and engaging.
The Open Education Group defines OER-Enabled Pedagogy as the “set of teaching and learning practices only practical in the context of the 5R permissions characteristic of open educational resources.” Some folks use the terms “open pedagogy” or “open educational practices” synonymously.
Examples:
Attribution
This section is an adaptation of Creative Commons For Academic Librarians (on Creative Commons Certificate for Educators, Academic Librarians and GLAM) by Creative Commons, and is used under a CC BY 4.0 license.
