Community Over Commercialization: Why Choose to Publish Open Access?

Through the theme "Community over Commercialization," International Open Access Week 2023 highlights the importance of the public accessibility of scholarly research to a wide audience regardless of location or affiliation. This year’s theme “encourages a candid conversation about which approaches to open scholarship prioritize the best interests of the public and the academic community—and which do not.”

The University of Pennsylvania Press and the Penn Libraries co-host this panel discussion to provide a primer on open access. Our panel features editors, authors, and the Journals Director at Penn Press.

They will talk about their experience with open access publishing, how open access publication increases the dissemination and reach of research, and the motivations for scholars to publish in open access venues.

Panelists will address equitable access to publication in the face of language barriers or the geographical specificity of the topics of research and the ways in which open access to the scholarly record can add value to the research community and to society more broadly.

The panelists will also highlight how equitable open access publishing increases the impact of journals and their content, raises up diverse voices, and extends the reach of scholarship to new audiences.

Panelists

• Jocelyn Dawson, Journals Director, University of Pennsylvania Press 
• Lynn Ransom, Editor, Manuscript Studies and Curator of SIMS Programs & Schoenberg Database Manager
• Amisha Shahra, Editor, The International Journal for Water Equity and Justice
• Camila Olmedo, Author, Founder El Agua Es Oro, Bolivia 
• Natalia Mendoza Abujder, Author, Arts & Sciences, Master’s in Environmental Studies University of Pennsylvania, Philadelphia, PA

Mendoza and Olmedo are co-authors of El Agua es Oro: A Human Centered Solution for the City of Cochabamba, Bolivia. (2022-04-30) in wH2O: The Journal of Gender and Water: Volume 9.