Stand Out! Workshop guide (for Grad Students)

Access to information is expensive

• The ISU Library’s yearly materials budget is over $12 million
• Access is essential
  • You can’t do research without good information.
• Iowa State invests in information access.
  • So you can produce high-quality research and scholarship.

Research is shared through closed systems

• You can recognize a closed system when:
  • It asks for money (“hitting a pay-wall”)
  • It requires account creation or personal information in exchange for access.
• Most closed systems are for-profit
  • Academia.edu is funded with venture capital 
  • Elsevier, one of the largest for-profit academic publishers, made $1.1 billion in profit in 2010 with a profit margin of 36%, which grew to a reported profit margin of 39% in 2013, and 37% in 2014. Source: Scholarly Publishing @ MIT Libraries: Elsevier Fact Sheet. 

Examples of open and closed systems

What is Open Access? 

• Open Access is a global movement created and supported by researchers, librarians, and students.
• Open Access was started in response to the growing cost of information access.
• The ultimate goal of the Open Access movement is to make research available to all, in many formats.

Sharing is at the heart of Open Access

• Open Access is about access and is compatible with:
  • Peer-review (quality control) and
  • Copyright (ownership)
• Open Access is also associated with transparent license agreements (such as Creative Commons) which makes it clear what users can and cannot do with a work.
• Open Access is often associated only with publications, such as journal articles, but it can also be used with other research outputs such as dissertations and theses, code, images, datasets, and more.