Join Us on May Day at the Free University of NYC!

This May 1st (tomorrow!), students, faculty, and the public are collaborating on a collective educational experiment: the Free University of NYC. Classes, teach-ins, skill shares, and more will be held in Madison Square Park (details + full schedule).

We’re delighted to be facilitating a teach-in on open access scholarly publishing at the Free University of NYC. Guiding questions may include:

– What is open access publishing?
– Why is it important?
– How can it help students, researchers, libraries, and the public?
– Why are academics boycotting publishing giant Elsevier?
– What are open access mandates and pledges?
– Where can you find open access materials?
– How can you make your own work openly-available?

We’ll be at the South Fountain in Madison Square Park at 10am tomorrow. Look for our sign, and come on out and join us!

–Jill, Alycia, and Maura

OA @ the CUNY IT Conference

A few of us who have been involved with the Open Access @ CUNY movement were part of the 2011 CUNY IT Conference last Friday at John Jay College. Jill Cirasella and I joined CUNY library faculty members Kathleen Collins and Rhonda Johnson for the panel “Copyright, Fair Use and Open License Tools Online.” Kathleen and Rhonda did a great job presenting all of the resources available to the copyright-curious through the (C)OPYRIGHT @ CUNY website–a resource ripe with information for students, faculty and librarians about using copyrighted works in the classroom and academia at large.

Jill and I then talked a bit about licensing your own work outside the parameters of standard copyright. My presentation, “You Don’t Need My Permission: Freeing Scholarship by Hacking Copyright,” which can be seen here, ran through some of the basics of free licenses and why you might consider using one for your work. Jill’s presentation, “Going Open Doesn’t Mean Going It Alone: Tools to Help Make Your Content Open,” which can be viewed here, showcased a number of tools that can help navigate the waters of Open Access publishing.

We would love if these materials could reach a wider audience than just those who were able to make it to our talk, and the conference!

Open Education Events @ Baruch

It’s not quite Open Access Week yet, but there are a couple of upcoming events at Baruch over the next week highlighting pedagogies and practices in open education that can help us get into the open access spirit:

Tonight!

Innovative Pedagogies for the Future of Higher Education
Thursday, October 13, 5:00 pm
Newman Vertical Campus, Room 14-270
RSVP to Communication.Institute at baruch.cuny.edu

Next week!

DIY Web Radio for Teaching and Learning
Wednesday, October 19, 6:00 pm
Newman Vertical Campus, Room 14-270
RSVP to Communication.Institute at baruch.cuny.edu

For more information, visit: http://blsciblogs.baruch.cuny.edu/schwartzseminar/

Image credit: John Martinez Pavliga