KU Libraries has announced plans to celebrate International Open Access Week with an event on October 21, at 11 a.m. in Watson Library 3 West, featuring keynote speaker Michael Dougherty, professor of psychology at the University of Maryland.
Dougherty’s presentation, titled ‘Aligning incentives with institutional values: Reforming faculty evaluation to promote (and reward) scholarship for the public good’, has been tailored for faculty, department chairs, and administrators. The session will explore how promotion and tenure structures can act as barriers to adopting open science practices and propose strategies to promote broader participation.
A hands-on workshop for faculty, department chairs, and administrators will follow at 2 p.m. Attendance is free with advance registration. The 11 a.m. keynote presentation is open to all attendees without registration.
As department chair, Dougherty has collaborated with colleagues to implement policy reforms and new departmental guidelines that align promotion and tenure standards with open access and open science practices.
He has emphasized that aligning academic evaluation with open access values reinforces the university’s responsibility to make scholarship available for public benefit. Dougherty has noted that many promotion systems include references to community engagement but often classify such activities under lesser-weighted service categories. He has indicated that his talk will address ways to realign incentives to encourage contributions that serve the public good.
The event will also commemorate the 20th anniversary of KU ScholarWorks, the institutional repository for KU faculty, staff, and student research. The celebration will include the announcement of the 2025 Shulenburger Award for Innovation and Advocacy in Scholarly Communications, presented annually by KU Libraries’ Shulenburger Office of Scholarly Communications and Copyright and the Dean of KU Libraries to recognize and encourage open access advocacy.
Dougherty has highlighted that library partnerships play a central role in advancing open access initiatives, noting that librarians are key contributors to promoting transparency, education, and public scholarship.
KU, which became the first public university in the United States to adopt an open access policy in 2009, continues to expand its leadership in openness. KU Libraries’ Open Education Resources save students an estimated $1.45 million annually. The libraries also invest in open publishing initiatives and maintain ScholarWorks, which recently surpassed 30,000 items and recorded more than 2.5 million downloads in 2024.
Additional details and resources are available on KU’s Open Access website.
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