Open Access Week is a yearly, global event that brings communities together to “take action, and raise awareness around the importance of community control of knowledge sharing systems.”
Each year brings a different Open Access Week theme. You can learn more about International Open Access Week, sign up for events happening across the globe, or read more about the yearly theme on the Open Access Week website. Each year, the Open Scholarship Commons organizes events to celebrate.
This year’s Open Access Week theme is Community over Commercialization and is an opportunity to discuss approaches to open scholarship best serve the interests of the public and the academic community. The Open Scholarship Commons will celebrate with the following events:
October 24, 2024, 1:00 p.m. – 2:00 p.m., OSC Presentation Space
“Stop Generating”: Generative AI in the Contexts of Indigenous Studies” Group Viewing
Drop by for a group viewing of UBC’s “Stop Generating”: Generative AI in the Contexts of Indigenous Studies”. No sign up required!
October 22, 2024, 11:00 a.m. – 12:00 p.m., Online
Accessible Data Visualization
Data visualization best practices and tools do not always discuss accessibility, which can exclude many users. This workshop will review ways to make your visualizations more accessible. We will work through a visualization together and add features to make it more accessible. You are encouraged to follow along, but no active participation is necessary. Data visualization experience is not required, though some familiarity with accessing and using spreadsheet software may be helpful. This workshop will not be recorded.
October 22, 2024, 1:00 p.m. – 2:30 p.m., OSC Presentation Space
The Challenges of Digital Publishing
In 1492, the Abbot of Sponheim, Johannes Trithemius, decried the novel technology of printing for producing books that would last, “at most,” 200 years, compared with the 1000 years he expected handwriting on parchment to endure. These timelines put into perspective both the immense challenges of the digital era when it comes to sustainability (the average website lasts about 197 years less than the, for Trithemius, already unacceptably fleeting lifespan of a printed book) as well as the disconnect between our expectations for durability – shaped by our sense now of the quasi‑permanence of printed books (for us, even 200 years seems like forever) – and the new realities of digital publishing.
This discussion explores the implications of these realities and how we can address them, both in practice – with approaches like “minimal computing” – and philosophically: how do we need to incorporate these publishing realities into our visions, projects, and planning? This includes one important aspect of these realities, which is that we don’t have a clear notion of what digital publishing even is.
October 23, 2024, 12:30 p.m. – 2:00 p.m., Online
OpEd Writing group Workshop: How to Write and Submit OpEds for Publication
Join us for an online op-ed writing and peer feedback workshop to learn how to write impactful op-eds. Attendees will learn strategies to write op-eds, have a chance to write individually during the session, and then get into breakout rooms with other attendees to get feedback on drafts of their work.
This workshop is a follow-up to one provided by the Scholars Strategy Network last spring and will be led by UW Libraries staff. Attendees were interested in more opportunities for dedicated writing and peer feedback time. Attendance at the spring workshop is not required; we will begin the workshop with a brief overview of the content. Due to the interactive nature of this workshop, it will not be recorded.
October 24, 2024, 11:00 a.m. – 12:30 p.m., OSC Presentation Space
Queering Games, Gaming Imaginaries
This workshop offers a set of questions, provocations, and critical examples to think about the ways that video games, digital texts, even generative AI are technonormative embedded with hegemonic ideals, tropes, and biases about race, gender, sexuality, ability, even technologies themselves. How then might we address and reconfigure these material, cultural, political, and technological norms? How might queering games allow for new, alternative, even radical possibilities, practices, and communities? Drawing on “open access” games, queer and feminist game studies, and popular culture, this presentation offers potential ways to disrupt, play with, and teach in our increasingly algorithmic and ludonarrative world. This event will be recorded and a link will be provided to attendees within a few weeks.
October 25, 2024, 1:00 p.m. – 2:00 p.m., Hybrid
Situating Data: Strategies for Curation and Contextualization
Data cannot be analyzed responsibly without deep knowledge of its social and historical contexts, provenance, and limitations. However, making these aspects of data visible in datasets, metadata, and data-driven publications can be difficult. In this workshop, we will discuss important considerations for responsible data curation, metadata creation, and broader contextualization. We will draw on examples from the Mozilla Foundation-funded Responsible Datasets in Context project, which pairs cultural datasets with rich documentation, data essays, and learning resources. Broadly, we will consider the importance of qualitative and humanistic perspectives and methods in data work.