UTA Libraries Open Access Week is coming! October 23-27

Open Access week is an internationally recognized time to expand awareness about what open access to resources has done and can do for the world! As described throughout the Open @ UTA Libraries blog series, our focus on open access relates both to educational and scholarly resources. During Open Education Week in the spring, we focus on educational resources. Open Access Week in the fall is the time we focus on scholarly resources, the impact of open access in the scholarly community, and building awareness of the open research and authorship opportunities across UTA campus and the surrounding community.  

As the Open Access Week Advisory Committee of the Scholarly Publishing and Academic Resources Coalition (SPARC) states, we need to “raise awareness about the importance of community control of knowledge sharing systems.” What does that mean, you ask? Knowledge sharing systems are all the ways that we gain and provide information, such as books, media of all kinds, and the internet. For most of the history of publishing and broadcasting, the rights to these resources have been held by for-profit (sometimes non-profit) companies that sell this information to readers/users. The internet changed that landscape quite a bit, but not entirely. Many industries, like music production, have taken a hardline on rights violations (for example, steep legal ramifications for pirating music online).  

The open access movement provides an alternative to pirating copyrighted content for members of the public and students who can’t afford to access resources (especially educational and scholarly resources that can determine what career opportunities they can achieve). The movement focuses on transforming the landscape of rights to go beyond the standard ‘all rights reserved’ and ensuring that users are aware of what they can and cannot do with shared content. The movement also advocates for the retention of authors’/creators’ rights, so that intellectual property rights stay with the creators and publishing/sharing becomes more equitable. We at UTA Libraries feel that this is an incredibly important part of our mission as an academic library serving a very diverse campus community.  

For this year’s Open Access Week at UTA Libraries, we created a program of events that will support awareness building about the open access movement and recognize the wide variety of topics that relate to open access. As you review the event opportunities below, you’ll see topics ranging from academic publishing, to software and game development, to artificial intelligence, to data landscapes, to the art world and art making, and to criminology and crime reporting. Each of these topics demonstrates an example of what open access is and can do for the global community. Join us to learn more and become our partners in open access at UTA!  

Questions and inquiries about accommodations can be sent to leah.mccurdy@uta.edu.  

Monday, October 23 

Open Source Software Licensing: Does it Matter? with Matt Duncan, Programmer Analyst 

12 – 1 PM 

Central Library – Classroom 315A 

Licensing in Gaming: The Making and Distribution of a Game, and How to Protect It with Tristan Arnold, Library Specialist 

3 – 4 PM 

Central Library - Classroom 109 

Tuesday, October 24 

Open Access Authors/Creators Poster Session presented by faculty and student researchers 

10 – 11 AM 

Central Library - Classroom 109 

Stable Diffusion: How Community Contributions Shape the Future of Generative AI with Callum Knitowski, Library Coordinator 

4 – 5 PM 

Central Library - Classroom 109 

Wednesday, October 25 

Open Data Workshop for Open Access Week with Rubab Shahzad (Data Visualization Librarian), Ryan Hendrick (Data Management Librarian), and Abhijit Challapalli (Libraries GRA) 

12 – 2 PM 

Central Library – Basement-DataCAVE 

Open Access Lock Glass Powdered Jewelry with FabLab staff 

12 – 3 PM 

Central Library – FabLab-Glass & Ceramics 

Artist & Filmmaker Roundtable: What Does Open Access mean in the Art World? with Art & Art History Faculty panelists 

5:30 – 6:30 PM 

FAB -  148 

Thursday, October 26 

Panel Discussion & Lunch with Open Initiatives Grant APC Awardees: Dr. Marion Ball, Dr. Sohyun Kim, and Dr. Ivy Hauser 

12 – 1:30 PM 

Central Library - Classroom 109 

Comprehending the Evolving Landscape of Online Deception: Operations and Countermeasures in Online Romance Scams and Sextortion with Dr. Fangzhou Wang (UTA), Dr. Siponen (University of Alabama), and Dr. Topalli (Georgia State University) 

2 – 3:00 PM 

Central Library – 6th Floor Atrium 

Friday, October 27 

The FBI transitions to NIBRS and the benefits NIBRS provides the user community with FBI Agent Drema Fouch 

10 – 11 AM 

Central Library – 6th Floor Atrium