Open Access Week is an annual, community-driven event focusing on open access and related topics. It takes place globally during the last full week of October. The event is celebrated by individuals, institutions and organizations across the world. Typical activities include talks, seminars, symposia, or the announcement of open access mandates or other milestones in open access. This year it will be the 10th International Open Access Week, and it will be held 23 – 29 October 2017. Since 2012, an ‘official’ theme was established, and this year it is called “Open in order to…”.
This theme is an invitation to answer the question of what concrete benefits can be realised by making scholarly outputs openly available. “Open in order to…” serves as a prompt to move beyond talking about openness in itself and focus on what openness enables—in an individual discipline, at a particular institution, or in a specific context; then to take action to realise these benefits. A few examples how to answer this question: Open in order to increase the impact of my scholarship. Open in order to enable more equitable participation in research. Open in order to improve public health. For more information about International Open Access Week, please visit www.openaccessweek.org.
At NTNU, there will be a number of talks on the importance of Open Access to science and research during this week. Researchers talk about their own experiences with publishing Open Access, others focus on NTNUs policy and goals for Open Access, and what the status is today. NTNU University Library offers an “Open Office” in a number of their locations. You can drop in to discuss what you yourself need to do to meet requirements from NTNU or your funders for making your publications openly available.