The Scholarly Publishing and Academic Resources Coalition (SPARC) recently wrapped up a first-ever Open Access (OA) Meeting in Kansas City, Montana. The meeting built on the foundation established by the SPARC Digital Repositories meeting, and its expanded focus included information on institutional OA policies, author rights and OA publishing. The 250 participants represented librarians, researchers, publishers and technologists from around the globe. The meeting programme was designed to inspire the community and foster opportunities for collaborative action on all issues relating to open access.
Keynote speaker, John Wilbanks, Fellow of the Ewing Marion Kauffman Foundation, kicked off the meeting with a presentation constructed in triads: he highlighted three stories, three “uncomfortable truths” and three eventual scenarios relating to the future of OA. His talk touched on topics from decentralised networks to data publishing to do-it-yourself alternative metrics. Throughout the presentation, Wilbanks emphasised the need for the community to insist on clarity of the definition of OA, especially with regards to end user rights. Underscoring the notion that the true power of Open Access is to enable innovation by encouraging collaboration, he noted ‘there is no together without rights,’ and ended with a proposal for a new kind of ‘SWOT’ analysis for the 21st scholarly publishing landscape.
The meeting included panels with expert speakers discussing OA policies (on a local, national and international level), new developments in the world of open digital repositories, an examination of author rights, and a look into the state of play in OA journal publishing. All of the available presenter slideshows and recordings will be available shortly.
The Innovation Fair reportedly provided a significant showcase for the creative work being done by institutions and businesses around OA. In rapid-fire two-minute presentations (including some in rhyme), participants described their projects and key outcomes. This year’s topics included information from specialised repositories to the possibility of new metrics challenging the impact factor for primacy in the tenure and promotion process.
Throughout the meeting, Twitter activity was extremely high and presented a variety of questions and comments from those in the room, as well as from those just following along at home.
