Advancing Open – Summary and Invitation for comment

October 13, 2019

This past May a gathering of 70+ academic scholarly communication practitioners had a unique opportunity to convene and explore the current state of open scholarship in Canada and discuss future strategies to foster and invigorate Open initiatives at local, regional and national levels. The event was aptly named Advancing Open.

It was encouraging to have so many participate in the event, but it was acknowledged that not everyone who might have wanted to contribute was able to attend in person or virtually. As a result, there were some key voices missing from the dialog.

A summary of the ideas, priorities, directions, strategies that were espoused during the Advancing Open event are attached and will give a framework to those who could not attend but would like to add their thoughts and ideas. We would like to hear from as wide a cross section of the community as possible if we are to capture the current or nascent issues related to the Open scholarship. The organizing committee invites comments and ideas from anyone who wishes to further the discussion by either commenting directly on a Google Form or sending in a written submission to: Ann.Barrett@dal.ca. Deadline for comments and submissions: Thursday October 31.

The compilation of ideas gathered from submissions will be combined with those from the Advancing Open event and will result in the generation of a report that will serve as a focal point to advocate and strengthen Open Scholarship in the Canadian environment.

For questions contact members of the CARL Open Repositories Working Group (ORWG) Community Building and Engagement Team:

• Ann Barrett (Ann.Barrett@dal.ca, Dalhousie University),
• Amy Buckland (buckland@uoguelph.ca, University of Guelph),
• Lindsey MacCallum (Lindsey.MacCallum@msvu.ca, Mount Saint Vincent University) and
• Leah Vanderjagt (leahv@ualberta.ca, University of Alberta)