Open Initiatives & Scholarly Communication

Open Initiatives and Scholarly Communication (OISC) supports the work of the Digital Strategies and Innovation division and includes expertise in the following areas:

• Open Access Policy Implementation - We lead the implementation of the University of Oklahoma's Open Access Policy, which aims to make OU research freely available to the public while complying with institutional mandates. We collaborate with faculty, librarians, and campus stakeholders to support policy adoption, assist researchers in depositing their work into OU's institutional repository, and provide workshops and resources on open access practices. Through their efforts, they advance OU’s commitment to transparency, innovation, and equitable access to knowledge.
• Open Educational Resources - We work to increase awareness and adoption of Open Educational Resources (OER) to reduce course material costs for students. As part of this work, we manage the OU Libraries' Alternative Textbook Grant (ATG), which awards instructors up to $2,500 to abandon costly course materials in favor of those available to their students for free. OER allows faculty to customize their course materials to meet their pedagogical needs.
• Publishing Services - We manage the OU Libraries Publishing Services, offering journal hosting for faculty-driven, peer-reviewed open access publications. We will help you create a new journal or migrate an existing journal to our platform. We are committed to hosting journals that cover unique and underrepresented fields and topics.
• Research Publication Subvention Funding - We oversee the University of Oklahoma Libraries’ Subvention Funding Program, which provides financial support for OU faculty and researchers to offset the costs associated with publishing in open access venues. This program ensures equitable access to high-quality, peer-reviewed research while promoting the principles of open scholarship. The Subvention Funding Program reflects OU Libraries’ commitment to reducing financial barriers in academic publishing and supporting faculty in disseminating their work to a global audience.

Consultations

We hold hybrid open office hours on Fridays from 9:30-11:30 a.m. via Zoom and in Collaboration Room LL2104 of the Data Services team on Lower Level 2 of the Bizzell Memorial Library.

SHAREOK Institutional Repository

SHAREOK is the joint institutional repository for the University of Oklahoma (OU) and the University of Central Oklahoma (UCO). It serves as the home for the intellectual output of those institutions and houses digital theses and dissertations, faculty publications, open access publications, open educational resources, institution-specific content, and much more.

Alternative Textbook Grant

The OU Libraries' Alternative Textbook Grant (ATG) awards instructors up to $2,500 to choose to transition from costly course materials to those available to their students for free. OER allow faculty to customize their course materials to meet their pedagogical needs. The ATG has saved OU students over $4M in course material costs since 2014.

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