Ryerson Library is very proud to announce the inaugural inductees for the Library’s Open Access Wall of Fame!

The Wall of Fame honours researchers who have demonstrated a commitment to ensuring their research is open and available to all. Our aim is to acknowledge and support those who consider open access avenues when publishing their work. Open Access material is scholarly work that is made legally available with no restrictions so the anyone can access the full text.

This year’s inaugural inductees are Dr Harald Bauder and Dr Enza Gucciardi.

Dr Bauder is the Academic Director of the Ryerson Centre for Immigration & Settlement and a graduate Professor in Immigration & Settlement Studies and the Department of Geography. Dr Bauder has been a long-time supporter of Open Access publishing, participating as both as writer and an editor. He was the editor of the journal ACME: An International e-Journal for Critical Geographies  for nearly a decade and also served as editor of the open-access book publisher Praxis (e)Press. Through Praxis (e)Press, Dr Bauder published the textbook Critical Geographies: A Collection of Readings with Salvatore Engel-di Mauro. In addition, as the inaugural Academic Director of the Ryerson Centre for Immigration and Settlement (RCIS), Dr Bauder founded and edited the open-access RCIS Discussion Paper Series and the RCIS Research Briefs. Other Open Access publication venues include Comparative Migration Studies, the CERIS Working Paper Series, and popular media, such as Open Democracy. For more information about Dr Bauder’s work, including links to his publications, please see his faculty page.

Dr Gucciardi is an Associate Professor in the School of Nutrition and an Affiliate Scientist with the Toronto General Hospital Research Institute. She has written over a dozen publicly-accessible manuscripts on diabetes research. On the subject of open access, she writes:

I feel that everyone should have equitable access to publicly-funded research. Many libraries cannot purchase all of the journals available, particularly in less developed countries; thus, open access material helps to support research at all institutions worldwide. I also believe that publishing in open access journals will help attain a higher level of impact from greater numbers of citations. Ultimately, if all research is moved out from behind paywalls, our work can inspire broader collaboration, proliferate more research and potentially have greater benefits on society globally.

For more information about Dr Gucciardi’s work, including selected publications, please see her website.

Congratulations to Dr Bauder and Dr Gucciardi! Ryerson Library is honoured to have you as our first Open Access Wall of Fame inductees.

International Open Access Week takes place October 19th to 25th, 2015! Open Access material is work that is made legally available on the public Internet with no restrictions so the anyone can access the full text. To celebrate this important cause, the Library is proud to host the following events.

1) The Internet’s Own Boy: The Story of Aaron Swartz

This documentary film will be streaming on Tuesday, October 20th between 10:00 AM and 5:00 PM in the SLC amphitheatre.  The film depicts the life of American computer programmer, writer, political organizer, Internet activist, and lifetime open access advocate, Aaron Swartz.

2) Free Webinar: Faculty Perspectives on Publishing Open Access

Anyone can register for this free webinar to watch it online, or you can drop by LIB489B on Tuesday, October 20th at 2:00 PM and join library staff for a group viewing.

Reports find that perceptions of open access publishing are changing for the better and that more and more faculty members are seeking out OA publications for maximum access and impact. However, other researchers continue to avoid it, and those who are early in their careers still aren’t sure how to fit it in their publishing priorities. In honor of Open Access Week, this one-hour webinar will feature three faculty members who will discuss why researchers do – or do not – publish in open access outlets and how they look to librarians for support in this process.

Alan Daly, Chair and Professor of the Department of Education Studies at the University of California, San Diego, will discuss how open access publishing is the best option for the individual researcher and the research community as a whole. Bruce Herbert, Professor of Geology and Director of the Office of Scholarly Communications at Texas A&M University, will discuss why researchers at his institution avoid open access outlets for publishing research and why subscription-based journals remain the best option for many. Shannon Audley-Piotrowski, Assistant Professor of Educational Psychology at Smith College, will discuss publishing priorities for early-career researchers.

3) Free Up Your Teaching: An Introduction to Open Access Material (LTO workshop)

Wednesday, October 21st 2015, 12:00pm – 2:00pm, POD 372

When combined with creative commons materials, public domain historical materials, and open access journals and books, the Fair Dealings Exception to the Copyright Act implies a greater amount of available content. Learn where to locate free textbooks and images to augment your PowerPoint slides.

Michelle Schwartz, LTO Research Associate, and Ann Ludbrook, Copyright Librarian, will offer tips, resources and information on library services available to reduce the work required to compile course readings. Dr. Nancy Walton, Director of e-Learning, will discuss practical application of open access materials to enhance your teaching.

Register for this workshop now.

This week is Open Education Week!

What is Open Education? It is an educational movement that is committed to producing teaching resources that can be used and then reused by other educators without formally seeking permission. In this model creators of educational content freely release their materials to the public. Other educators can then deliver the material freely to their students, as long as they attribute the original creator. These resources are most commonly made available under Creative Commons licences.  Many MOOCs, open courses, and regular classes now routinely use this kind of content, because there is no need to get copyright clearance and they can be publicly posted on the web.

Open textbooks, like open courses, are created by experts and then made freely available to the public. Projects like the BCCampus OpenEd textbook initiative and the OER Commons give instructors a way to find free-to-share material, and great resources like the Creative Commons search can help anyone find free to use images and music.

Toronto Metropolitan University Library & Archives is hosting a few events this week to celebrate Open Education Week 2015.

Tips for Finding Free Music, Images, and More: Drop-In

Today 12-1 pm, March 9th, Student Learning Centre (SLC) Rm 515

Find free music & images and more to use in your projects – both commercial and school based. This is a drop-in session.

Is there a Free Textbook in Your Future?

12-1 pm, March 10th, 2015, Student Learning Centre (SLC) Rm 514

Can you imagine a world were some of the textbooks that are used to teach courses you take are free? Find out more about the Open Access Textbook movement.

The Affordable Classroom: Open Access Textbooks (LTO and the Library)

12-2pm March 12th, 2015 POD-372

Do you ever worry about the rising cost of textbooks for your students? Are you interested in hearing about possible alternatives to the traditional textbook model, like open access textbooks? In this workshop you will learn about new Canadian-lead open access textbook repositories, and other open access textbook resources that are freely available on the web to use in your teaching. If you are interested in building your own open access textbook to use in your classroom, this workshop will provide you with the necessary building blocks to get started.

Sign up here

After some delay, the Tri-Agency Open Access Policy on Publications has been released. The policy requires that any peer-reviewed publication(s) arising from grants received from any of the three agencies (CIHR, NSERC, SSHRC) be made freely accessible within 12 months of publication. The new policy comes into force for any grants awarded after May 1st, 2015. It’s worth noting that CIHR has had an open access policy since 2008.

Researchers funded by any of these three agencies are required to either:

1) Publish in a journal that allows immediate open access or one that permits open access within 12 months of initial publication; and/or

2) Deposit the final, peer-reviewed author version of your article in an online open access repository, such as RULA’s Digital Repository.

It is important to note that option 2 does not require any payments to publishers, but option 1 might incur an open access article processing fee.

The Ryerson Library maintains deposit accounts, to cover open access charges, with PLoS, Biomed Central, and Hindawi. In addition, we accept applications for funding from other journals, subject to criteria outlined in our Open Access Author Fund policy page.

Bill C-11 (The Copyright Modernization Act) Update

Many sections of Bill C-11 (The Copyright Modernization Act) including fair dealing exceptions for education and other educational and library specific provisions are now in force as of Nov. 7th, 2012. Toronto Metropolitan University is currently working on a new fair dealing policy, and our copyright pages wil be soon updated to reflect all the changes.

Highlights:

• Fair dealing for the purpose of education, and parody and satire are now exceptions
• Public performance rights are no longer needed to show a movie or video in a classroom setting
• Material from the internet that does not have clearly posted warnings against  reuse can be reused in course materials

Have you recently published in a journal? Do you know your rights as an
author? Join us for a presentation and discussion focusing on how you can
protect your author rights and reuse, republish and redistribute your work.
Learn about how to protect your intellectual property through addenda to
copyright transfer agreements and avoid the pitfalls associated with impact
factors. We will also discuss the value of open access publishing and
Digital Commons @ Ryerson, our institutional repository.

Presenter: Brian Cameron, Digital Initiatives Librarian, Toronto Metropolitan University
Library and Archives

This presentation will take place on Friday, October 26 from 12-2 in the
OVPRI board room (1 Dundas Street, YDI-1134). Lunch will be served at 12
p.m., with the talk starting at 12:45.

Please RSVP to bcameron@ryerson.ca by October 24th, as space is limited.

Supreme Court of Canada’s Decisions on Fair Dealing

Several Supreme Court of Canada rulings on copyright were made on July 12, 2012. These decisions should broaden the interpretation of the Copyright Act fair dealing provisions for materials copied for use in university teaching. Presently the AUCC is working on updating their fair dealing guidelines based on the recent Supreme Court of Canada’s rulings and in light of the new Copyright Modernization Act. When these new guidelines are released, the Toronto Metropolitan University Fair Dealing Policy will be updated to reflect this advice.

At present the current Toronto Metropolitan University Fair Dealing Policy is still in effect, dated August 31^st, 2011. Please use this document to make fair dealing assessments for your Fall 2012 courses. Once Toronto Metropolitan University’s policy is updated the library  will offer several short informational sessions regarding the new fair dealing guidelines. Please check here to see the schedules for upcoming Copyright information sessions.

Bill C-11 (The Copyright Modernization Act)

While Bill C-11 (The Copyright Modernization Act) received Royal Assent on June 29, 2012 an order-in-council decision must be issued before it is in force. The current Copyright Act is still in effect until that time. Please use the current FAQ’s for use of course materials in the Physical Classroom and Virtual Classroom environment. These FAQ’s will be updated once The Copyright Modernization Act is in effect.