Library and Information Science Commons^™

Opening Cuny: Academic Works At Work, Megan Wacha, Miriam Deutch, William A. Casari, Jill Cirasella

Publications and Research

Academic Works, CUNY’s new open access institutional repository, collects and provides public access to the scholarly and creative works produced by CUNY faculty, students and staff. This program will show how opening content to the world impacts CUNY, as each speaker addresses collections at their institution: dissertations at The Graduate Center, Open Educational Resources at Brooklyn College, the “Save Hostos” archival collection at Hostos Community College and faculty research from across CUNY.

Public Scholarship For The Public Good: An Introduction To Open Access, Megan Wacha

Publications and Research

This workshop provides an introduction to open access publishing models and discusses its implication for faculty research and student learning. Participants leave with a solid understanding of open access and important related areas, such as copyright, that empowers them to make informed decisions when publishing and contribute public scholarship for the sake of the public good.

Randall Munroe’S What If As A Test Case For Open Access In Popular Culture, Nancy M. Foasberg

Publications and Research

Open access to scholarly research benefits not only the academic world but also the general public. Questions have been raised about the popularity of academic materials for nonacademic readers. However, when scholarly materials are available, they are also available to popularizers who can recontextualize them in unexpected and more accessible ways. Randall Munroe’s blog/comic What If uses open access scholarly and governmental documents to answer bizarre hypothetical questions submitted by his readers. His work is engaging, informative, and reaches a large audience. While members of the public may not rush to read open access scientific journals, their availability to writers …

Beyond Beall’S List: Better Understanding Predatory Publishers, Monica Berger, Jill Cirasella

Publications and Research

This article discusses the phenomenon of predatory publishing and examines the benefits and limitations of Jeffrey Beall's blacklist of "potential, possible, or probable" predatory open access (OA) publishers. It also describes the Directory of Open Access Journals (DOAJ), a whitelist of scholarly OA journals, and other tools for evaluating open access journals. It concludes by discussing the role of librarians, who must help researchers avoid low-quality journals and also need to counteract the misconceptions and alarmism that stymie the acceptance of OA.

You Know What You Write, But Do You Know Your Rights? Understanding And Protecting Your Rights As An Author, Jill Cirasella

Publications and Research

When you publish a journal article, you sign a copyright or licensing agreement. Do you know what you’re agreeing to when you sign it?

Different journals have different policies: Some journals require you to relinquish your copyright. (You then have to ask permission or even pay to share your article with students and colleagues!) Some journals allow you to retain some rights (e.g., the right to post online). Some journals leave copyright in your hands. (You simply give the journal a non-exclusive license to publish the article.)

How can you find out a journal’s policy? How can you negotiate your …