As we come to the close of Open Access Week 2019, having been faced with the challenge of considering this year’s theme, “Open for Whom? Equity in Open Knowledge”, the words of Carl Sagan seem even more appropriate. “Writing is perhaps the greatest of human inventions, binding together people, citizens of distant epochs, who never knew one another. Books break the shackles of time ― proof that humans can work magic.”

This week’s collection of articles from around the web begins with some relevant discussions on open access including an MIT-developed framework for negotiating contracts with scholarly publishers, the future of open access business models, discussion about ownership of research, and the first 100 books from Johns Hopkins University Project. We’ve also included some other hot topics for academic authors on grant writing, being an older student, and being a minority in academia.

Wherever your writing takes you this week, whether publishing open access or traditional, consider the audience you can reach and the shackles of time you can break as a result of your efforts. Happy writing!

Rules for making big deals

Dozens of institutions have endorsed a set of guiding principles for negotiating contracts that support open-access practices with scholarly publishers. Who should own and control the dissemination of research? Not academic publishers, according to a new framework developed by library leaders at the Massachusetts Institute of Technology.

The future of open access business models: APCs are not the only way

At the recent OASPA conference in Copenhagen, there was almost universal concern that the transition to open access (OA) publication of research as posited by initiatives such as Plan S and Horizon 2020 was progressing too slowly; impeded by lack of awareness and importance by authors and researchers, and questions from publishers about long term sustainability and the appropriacy of business models such as author processing charges (APCs).

Where research meets profits

Recent allegations of copyright violations against a professor who shared his own work on his website spark debate about ownership and whether peer reviewers should be paid.

Open access books: The first 100 books from Johns Hopkins University Project

For the start of OA Week, I interviewed Barbara Kline Pope, Director of Johns Hopkins University Press (JHUP), and Wendy Queen, Director of Project MUSE, about a Mellon/NEH funded project managed by JHUP in partnership with JHU’s Sheridan libraries to create digital OA editions of 200 currently out-of-print books. The first 100 of those books are being released this week.

10 Red flags in grant writing

Grant writing can occupy a disproportionate amount of faculty time and energy, write Jude Mikal and Sarah Grace, who offer advice to help ensure that such time and energy are well spent.

When you’re older than your professors

Marlene was one of the brightest and most conscientious doctoral students I’ve ever served in my academic coaching and editing practice. An older student, she had returned for her doctorate after three of her four kids were grown and out. Marlene held down a full-time job in medical billing, and her youngest was now in high school, so Marlene embarked on a lifelong dream—she enrolled in a doctoral program. We were working together on her dissertation.

Being in a minority: It’s not all bad

There are two specific ways I was positioned as a minority during my PhD: being an Asian woman and being a medieval scholar. Being a medieval scholar was the more difficult of the two!