Open Expansion: Connecting the Open Access, Open Data and OER Dots

" ... In higher education, the momentum of the burgeoning movement towards “open” sharing of information of all kinds continues to gain traction. In particular, advancements in the areas of open access to articles, data, and educational resources are increasingly visible on our campuses. In all three of these areas, academic and research libraries are playing important, central roles in promoting the awareness of the potential costs and benefits of a more open research and education environment, as well as defining new roles for libraries in this digital environment. As this push for grater openness continues, these three fronts are intersecting in interesting and potentially transformative ways. The Open Access, Open Educational Resources and Open Data movements share fundamental philosophical commonalities that would seem to make collaboration among the movements a natural outcome. All three movements place a premium on reducing barriers to discovering and accessing pertinent digital information. Perhaps even more significantly, all three movements explicitly recognize that enabling productive use – and reuse – of digital information is key to unlocking its full value. As a result of these shared priorities, the three movements also share a multitude of common strategies, presenting new opportunities for deeper collaboration to take place. This talk will explore what is happening in these 'open' movements from both a practical and policy standpoint; how this might directly impact academia, the research community, and especially, libraries, and pose some thoughts on where the larger 'open' movement might be headed."