The University Libraries’ Scholarly Communications program promotes open access and supports faculty in new and emerging forms of scholarly dissemination. Through educational programming and assistance with dissemination, the program supports faculty and students at the university with author rights, publishing, and copyright.
Services and Resources
Open Educational Resources
Open Educational Resources (OER) are textbooks, learning objects, and other educational materials that are open: they are free to access with few or no limitations on remixing, modifying, and sharing them. ScholarWorks@GVSU hosts several open textbooks produced by Grand Valley faculty members.
Interested in learning more about OER, or in search of high-quality OER for a course? Our Open Educational Resources Guide is a great place to start.
New: Accelerating OER
Thanks to a generous grant from President Mantella's Innovation Fund, the Accelerating OER Initiative is expanding Grand Valley's support for faculty to create and use Open Educational Resources in their teaching. Over two years, this initiative will provide faculty grants, workshops, and new capacity for our library publishing services.
Interested? Learn more about this initiative and discover upcoming opportunities on the Accelerating OER webpage.
ScholarWorks@GVSU
ScholarWorks@GVSU is an open-access repository maintained by the GVSU Libraries that showcases and maintains works by GVSU scholars. The mission of ScholarWorks@GVSU is to collect and preserve scholarly and creative works by GVSU faculty, staff and students.
Open Access Publishing Fund
The University Libraries have established the Open Access Publishing Support Fund to remove financial barriers that prevent researchers from publishing in open access journals. The Libraries will cover up to $3,000 of author submission fees to support the ability of researchers to publish in established open access peer-reviewed journals.
Open Access Journal Quality Indicators
The open access landscape is complex. There are thousands of peer-reviewed open access journals, with new titles emerging rapidly using a variety of models. While there are many high-quality, peer-reviewed open access publications, there are also journals/publishers that engage in unprofessional or unethical practices. To assist faculty in navigating this landscape the University Libraries established guidelines to help evaluate open access publications as they consider appropriate publication venues, or invitations to serve as reviewers or editors.
Educational Programs and Opportunities
The University Libraries can provide customized presentations or workshops for faculty or student groups. We can cover topics such as open access publishing, author rights, open education materials, ScholarWorks, and SelectedWorks. For more information, or to schedule a presentation, contact Matt Ruen at [email protected]
Support for Organizations & Initiatives
The University Libraries proudly support multiple organizations and initiatives focused on issues in scholarly communications. These organizations advocate for more sustainable and open systems of scholarly publishing, develop resources for institutions and individuals, and inspire new critical questions about how scholars create and share information. Participating and sponsoring these groups enables GVSU faculty, staff, and students to build new connections with widespread communities of practice, learning from others' innovations and sharing our own expertise.
To learn more about any of these organizations or initiatives, follow the link in their captions.
Grand Valley is a founding member of the Library Publishing Coalition (LPC), a network of academic libraries and consortia working towards an open, inclusive, and sustainable landscape of scholarly publishing.
LPC provides a professional forum for library publishers to explore new ideas, develop useful practices, and share expertise.
The Digital Library Federation (DLF) is an international community dedicated to advancing research, learning, social justice, & the public good through the creative design and wise application of digital library technologies.
DLF members include academic institutions like GVSU, public libraries, museums, galleries, archives, and other organizations.
SPARC (the Scholarly Publishing and Academic Resources Coalition) advocates for policies and practices that advance Open Access, Open Data, and Open Education.
With support from members like the GVSU Libraries, SPARC develops resources to encourage change, coordinates events like International Open Access Week, and shares information through programs like Connect OER.
#GoOpen Michigan is a statewide initiative promoting and supporting the use of Open Educational Resources in K-12 education. This initiative, led by the Michigan Department of Education, provides professional development for teachers as well as a repository of OER curated by Michigan educators.
GVSU is a member of the #GoOpen Michigan Strategy Team.
The Open Textbook Network (OTN) is dedicated to promoting access, affordability, and student success through the use of openly-licensed textbooks.
OTN hosts and curates the Open Textbook Library, an exceptional directory of high-quality OER.