The top ten things we learned during Open Access Week

From October 22^nd  – 29^th a number of free sessions were provided by SFU, UBC and Douglas College libraries to provide information on projects and resources involving Open Access. A number of us from the library attended different sessions and we’ve put together this list to share what we found out.

1. There is a lot of data to support open textbooks – here are statistics in favour of Open Textbooks shared by Rajiv Jhangiani:
   a. Since the 1970s the cost of textbooks has increased by an astounding 812%
   b. There is a direct relationship between textbook cost and students success (eg. 35% choose not to register for a course due to textbook cost and 23% regularly go without textbooks due to cost)
2. The BC Campus Open Textbook project’s free high quality textbooks are just a start. Other, more interactive, Open Online Resources are the future.
3. Phylo the trading card game is an open source and open access project that started at UBC because some scientists discovered that “Kids know more about Pokemon creatures than they do about real creatures*” and they wanted to do something about it.
4. In order to flip the classroom, UBC Anatomy has produced videos and other learning objects which are freely available on the web with Creative Commons licensing: http://www.neuroanatomy.ca/
5. What a Book Sprint is – a group of people getting together to create and publish a book within 3-5 days: BCCampus hosted one and created this book: British Columbia in a Global Context
6. In order to address quality concerns, many open textbooks, including some at BC Campus are accompanied by faculty reviews.
7. The Open Access Button site  – provides a button that can be added to your favourites bar that allows you to search for a free version of an article when you encounter a paywall
8. Student peer reviewed journals are being published at SFU and UBC with Open Journal Systems, and the articles are indexed in Google Scholar
9. The Public Knowledge Project School at SFU offers free, online courses in Open Journal Systems for journal managers, editors and reviewers
10. Instructors are engaging their students as producers of content in all kinds of ways and, for the most part, students are posting their work on open access sites with Creative Commons licensing. Students are enthused about working on assignments that have value and are shared with an audience of more than one or two people.