Open Access Week 2012 took place 22-28 October, all over the world.
According to the Open Access Week web site,
“Open Access” to information – the free, immediate, online access to the results of scholarly research, and the right to use and re-use those results as you need – has the power to transform the way research and scientific inquiry are conducted. It has direct and widespread implications for academia, medicine, science, industry, and for society as a whole.
Open Access (OA) has the potential to maximize research investments, increase the exposure and use of published research, facilitate the ability to conduct research across available literature, and enhance the overall advancement of scholarship. Research funding agencies, academic institutions, researchers and scientists, teachers, students, and members of the general public are supporting a move towards Open Access in increasing numbers every year. Open Access Week is a key opportunity for all members of the community to take action to keep this momentum moving forward.
Networked Researcher participated during Open Access Week with what we have called a “blogging unconference.” The Wikipedia entry for unconference defines it as
…a participant-driven meeting. The term “unconference” has been applied, or self-applied, to a wide range of gatherings that try to avoid one or more aspects of a conventional conference, such as high fees, sponsored presentations, and top-down organization.
We believe that blogging is a major part of the academic Open Access movement.
We have used the term “unconference” rather liberally, since our event does not require the physical presence of participants in the same geographical place at the same time.
We posted the call for participants on 14 September 2012 and the registration process closed on 17 October 2012. Those interested in participating were required to contact us telling us a little bit about themselves and their online work.
At the moment Networked Researcher counts with 39 registered contributors, out of which 19 registered specifically for the unconference. All our contributors have accounts on our blog that allow them to publish their contributions directly without intermediation.
Instead of real-life, real-time presentations, the intention is that the “papers” in our event be presented as open access blog posts, and any discussion carried out through comments and other posts.
This is an experimental activity and we want it to be as free as possible. There won’t be any scheduling as we hope it will kind of sort itself out (we hope!). (For our community policy, go here).
As it is often with blogging and other online events, there is no way of knowing if we will have a very busy, productive week full of posts or if there will be only one or two. Ideally it will be the former and we can send out a positive message about the role of blogging in the academic discussion around Open Access.
Everyone reading this is welcome to leave comments on the posts online (comments will be moderated to avoid spam so please be patient) and/or engage with us on Twitter @networkedres.
All the unconference contributions were archived under our Open Access Week 2012 category on this site and we will be sharing the unconference posts on Twitter with the #netresoa and #oaweek hashtags for the unconference posts.
Welcome, everyone!
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[The verb tenses on this post were edited a posteriori].
About Ernesto Priego
