Open Access Day

Keynote: Challenging the digital consensus - The Open Data and Open Access endgame

Bianca Wylie

After decades of investment in a movement of openness by a range of stakeholders and actors, where is the idea of openness helping and where might it be hurting progress and equity and democracy? How will the role of the government change as this movement evolves? Should it? What about civil society institutions and professional bodies?   

Open as a normative good has been challenged by many. With entrenched digital power structures and disparities it's time for the open movement to consider progress and challenges to date, and to redefine the open movement's endgame.

Arctic and Inuit communities: The meaning and practice of 'Open' and 'Equity'

Chantel Ridsdale

Since the late 1990’s, CCIN has maintained an outreach and education website (https://ccin.ca) of cryospheric information for the public. In response to increasing demand for proper stewardship of valuable research datasets and information, CCIN and partners came together in the mid-2000’s to develop a more sophisticated online presence and database to serve Canada’s northern research community.  The resulting database, the PDC (https://polardata.ca), began as a metadata discovery portal to facilitate exchange of information about Canada’s Arctic and the Antarctic among researchers, northern Canadians, and other user groups.  Since its online launch in 2007, the PDC has become Canada’s primary on-line source for data and information on research and monitoring in the polar regions.

CCIN’s main objectives are to:

• Provide a data and information management infrastructure for the Canadian cryospheric research community;
• Enhance public awareness and access to cryospheric information and related data; and
• Facilitate the exchange of information between researchers, northern communities, decision makers, and the public.

Open and Equity in the context of Inuit communities and Arctic research is very important for CCIN/PDC, as can be seen in our objectives. We value the FAIR principles as a best practice, ensuring data and information on our catalogue is findable, accessible, interoperable, and reusable. These four tenants of OA are at the core of equity, and we work every day to ensure that this is undertaken with pride, precision, and patience with our research partners.

In this session, I will be discussing both historic and current challenges and issues, as well as solutions that are being implemented and considered, in partnership with Inuit communities and regional and federal representatives. Additionally, Indigenous Knowledge is important in the context of this session, and the development of locally created Atlases have been key in open and equity on the communities’ terms.

Free? Open? Commercial? Trying to find balance in the Faculty of Mathematics

Steve Furino

The Faculty of Mathematics has prepared digital assets that are used by thousands of degree enrolled students and hundreds of thousands of students, teachers and parents in outreach programs. There has been lots of interest expressed by others to adopt, adapt and distribute these interactive assets. Given the expense in preparing, deploying and maintaining these digital assets, the Faculty must now consider how it wishes to continue to support the evolution of course content.

Lunch

Registration required. In room DC 1301. Generously co-sponsored by the Centre for Teaching Excellence (CTE) and the Centre for Extended Learning (CEL).

Creative Commons

Kathryn Blair

Thinking of making some of your work available for others to use for certain reasons without having to ask your permission? This session will help you choose and use a Creative Commons license.

Tri-Agency Open Access Policy: From author rights to UWSpace

Lauren Byl, Rebecca Hutchinson and Will Roy

This workshop will review the Tri-agency (CIHR, NSERC & SSHRC) Open Access policy on publications, which applies to all NSERC or SSHRC grants awarded on or after May 1, 2015, and CIHR grants awarded on or after January 1, 2008. The session will cover:

• outline the policy and its requirements
• present an introduction to author’s rights and responsibilities
• demonstrate how to use UWSpace and its copyright review and deposit service to easily comply with the policy

Waterloo researchers who have received grant funding or have an interest in making their research Open Access are encouraged to attend.

Primer on predatory publishing

Lauren Byl

This session will provide an introduction to the basics of the issue of predatory publishing. Participants will understand what predatory publishing is, and gain a few tips on how to spot a predatory journal or publisher.

Open Education initiatives in Ontario

James Skidmore

James Skidmore will bring us up to speed on the state of Open Education in Ontario. Skid is currently an Open Education Fellow with eCampusOntario (ecampusontario.ca), a provincially-funded centre of excellence in online and technology enabled learning for higher education. After explaining the various ways eCampusOntario facilitates open education, Skid will look more closely at the obstacles facing open education, and introduce some ideas that he has been working on to address those issues. He will also introduce his own project, Open German Studies, which can serve as one model for increasing open education in the humanities.