Open Access (storefront) by Gideon Burton / CC BY-SA

Open Access Week, now in its 5th year, is taking place this week, October 24-30. “Open Access to information—the free, immediate, online access to the results of scholarly research, and the right to use and re-use those results as you need—has the power to transform the way research and scientific inquiry are conducted. It has direct and widespread implications for academia, medicine, science, industry, and for society as a whole.” The fifth annual OA Week is kicking off with events around the world, and the CC community is joining. Below we highlight a few of these activities!

Open Access Week Perú

Both CC Perú and CC Chile will present at Open Access Week Perú. CC Chile’s Alberto Cerda will be one of the speakers opening the conference on October 25, with CC Perú’s Rafael A. Salazar Gamarra giving a talk on CC, open access and copyright on October 26. Open Access Week Perú is a series of activities that addresses different aspects and approaches to open access internationally and aims to highlight the various initiatives that promote free access to academic and scientific information in Perú and elsewhere. The full program is available at http://www.openaccessperu.org.

Open Access Seminar in Poland

On October 28, CC Poland’s Alek Tarkowski and Kamil Śliwowski will lead a seminar on open publishing models and the use of new media in scientific work. The seminar will take place at the Polish Culture Institute in the University of Warsaw. In addition, the Open Education Coalition in Poland is organizing several open access events throughout the country. For more information, see CC Poland’s blog post.

SHOW – Share Open Access Worldwide in Croatia

SHOW (Share/OpenAccess/Worldwide) will celebrate Open Access Week in Croatia. On October 26, CC Croatia’s Tomislav Medak will give a talk on CC licensing and Open Access at the Faculty of Humanities and Social Sciences of the University of Rijeka. The idea is to raise awareness among Croatian students about the importance of the free flow of information and open access to research literature, which is not a familiar term in the region, by raising questions about what students are already well familiar with, i.e., intellectual property. The students will be introduced to Copyleft movement, Creative Commons licensing, Open Projects, Open Content movement, Open Access movement and the Right to Research Coalition; and they will be invited to join the debate about the prospects for a world of open values. The full program is available at http://www.intechweb.org/show.html.

Open Access Week online

CC staff are also promoting open access in various webinars and telecasts, including the New Directions in Scholarly Communication Online Seminar, the Right to Research Coalition’s webcast on Open Access and the Impact of Open on Research, and a telephone seminar for the State Bar of California. Today, October 24, CC Senior Adviser John Wilbanks joins the New Directions in Scholarly Communication Online Seminar to discuss the changing landscape of scholarly communication and scientific publishing. On October 26, John will also discuss Open Access and how open has the power to transform research for the Right to Research Coalition. On October 27, Aurelia J. Schultz, CC Counsel and Africa Regional Coordinator, will give a presentation on CC licenses for the Intellectual Property section of the California State Bar, to inform lawyers about CC licenses and how they can help their clients use CC licenses or CC-licensed works.