Photo by Daniel Tong, Design by Kim Henze.
International Open Access Week is an annual opportunity for academics and researchers to learn and raise awareness about equitable knowledge sharing and “open access” (OA): the free, immediate, online access to the results of scholarly research, and the right to use and re-use those results as needed.
This year, the theme of OA Week is "Community over Commercialization": how can scholarship be disseminated so that the public and academics benefit rather than commercial interests? How can we prevent knowledge and information from being commercialized so that it can be accessed by all rather than a wealthy few?
These questions speak to economic and social justice. OA advances justice by ensuring that access to information is barrier free so that it can be read and responded to by the public, rather than only academics, and by scholars at schools that are underprivileged and / or in developing countries, rather than only those at institutions that are wealthy and / or in developed countries. In short, OA levels the information playing field so that more can participate in and benefit from the circulation of ideas.
For more information about International Open Access Week in general, please visit openaccessweek.org. For more information about IU's Open Access Week 2023 and / or Open Access at IU, please email the Scholarly Communication Department at IU Bloomington Libraries and / or peruse our guides to OA: