Open Access Advocacy: How students can get involved

On January 31 we hosted a webcast with Nick Shockey, Director, Right to Research Coalition and Director of Student Advocacy, SPARC. It was targeted to students and young researchers who want to get engaged in Open Access, educate their peers on the severe barriers to access to the latest research, the benefits of Open Access, and to get involved that the student voice for Open Access becomes louder and stronger.

The Problem: Students can't access essential research...

As a student, it’s no secret that academic journals are crucial to our research, our papers, and our understanding of both fine details and the larger, overall picture of everything we study. Yet, students often run into access barriers while to trying to do research, forcing us to settle for what we can get access to, rather than what we need most. Over the past two decades, the price of subscriptions to academic journals has increased tremendously, to the point where they’re often out of reach for students, even at the most well funded institutions.

The Solution: Open Access

Luckily for students, doctors, patients, and everyone else who relies on academic journals, there is a proven alternative to costly subscription-based based journals. Using the Internet, research can be distributed to a wider audience at a very low marginal cost – the difference between what it costs to distribute an article to one person or to one million people is very small. Instead of locking information behind price barriers, research can reach anyone who needs it, regardless of university affiliation, geographic location, or ability to pay. It’s time for a new model – it’s time for Open Access.

Resources from the webcast

Slides [pptx], Nick Shockey “Open Access, the Right to Research Coalition” available here.

Session recording available here. 

Take action

Get involved in Open Access! Nick Shockey set up a dedicated webpage EIFL Student Webcast on January 31, 2012: http://www.righttoresearch.org/act/eifl where you can register if you want to stay up-to-date on significant developments from the Right to Research Coalition; if you are interested in advocating for your university to adopt an institutional Open Access policy; if you are interested in translating Right to Research Coalition resources into another language; and share any ideas for how you might promote Open Access on your campus.

Join the Right to Research Coalition

Formal membership in the Right to Research Coalition is only open to student organizations, join here. However, students and non-students alike, can sign The Individual Statement on The Right to Research. 

The event was organized within 15th annual workshop Informational resources for education and scholarship in Ukraine organized by National University Kyiv-Mohyla Academy with the partners: NGO ELibUkr “Electronic Library of Ukraine”, NGO “Informatio-Consortium” Association, EIFL, Ukrainian Library Association (University Libraries section).

Files / Images: 

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january_2012_eifl_presentation.pptx