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Scholarly Communications – MIT Libraries
Scholarly Communications - MIT Libraries

Open Access Week 2023: Community over Commercialization

Posted on October 19, 2023 in Uncategorized

OA week news & events @ MIT

Next week is the 15th anniversary of International Open Access Week, a celebration of the open sharing of research knowledge in scholarly publications like journals, proceedings, and books. The 2023 theme is “Community over Commercialization,” which asks us to explore approaches to open scholarship that share the values of the research community and public, and to consider those that do not.

When commercial interests are prioritized over those of the communities that research seeks to serve, many concerning issues arise. A couple of examples: Costs to subscribe to and publish in journals can grow to prohibitive levels that exclude many readers, researchers, and institutions; fewer corporations now control knowledge production as they buy other companies along the academic system, which can lead to conflicts of interest.

Starting tomorrow, head to the Libraries news site for stories on legal issues around text and data mining, open data repositories, and MIT’s own community-run repository, DSpace@MIT.

Here are some goings-on in and around MIT related to open in the next week:

    • October 23, 12-1:30 pm, The Nexus (14S-130): Legal issues in Computational Research Using Text and Data Mining
      This workshop will survey existing law and policy and highlight pathways forward for researchers, including fair use and TDM-specific exemptions to copyright, particularly for users of materials covered by digital rights management (DRM) and other similar technology. We will also discuss limitations of the law and explore ways in which it might be improved. Lunch included.
    • October 24, 3 pm, The Nexus (14S-130): Open Data Prize 2023
      Celebrate the winners of the 2023 MIT Prize for Open Data. The program will feature award presentations and short talks from prize winners. 
    • October 26, 10-11 am, online: Imaging Neuroscience & community over commercialization: An OA week panel
      Join MIT Libraries and the MIT Press for an online panel with the editor of Imaging Neuroscience, a new open access journal that launched after editorial teams from two Elsevier journals left the publisher over disputes around the high cost for authors.

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