The 15th Open Access Days 2021 took place from 27-29 September. Due to the Covid 19 pandemic, the open-access.network project organised the largest German-language conference on Open Access in a digital format.
The event was aimed at all those who are intensively involved with the possibilities, conditions and perspectives of academic publishing. This includes staff from libraries and other science infrastructure institutions, from publishing houses as well as researchers from Germany, Austria and Switzerland.
This year's conference programme was entitled "Participation" and focused on the following topics:
- How is economic participation shaped against the background of changes in the OA landscape through read-&-publish contracts and initiatives such as Plan S?
- How can non-commercial publication initiatives or non-university authors participate in the academic discourse in view of these initiatives and contracts?
- What form can social participation in academic knowledge take through OA? And what opportunities for social participation are promoted by OA?
- How can less privileged countries actively participate in the global scientific discourse?
These were the topics addressed by 59 speakers in a total of 10 sessions and 5 workshops. The title "Participation" was addressed from different perspectives in two keynotes by Laura Czerniewicz from the University of Cape Town on "Open Access and Social Justice" and Margo Bargheer on "Participation through OA - a promise only partially kept". A special highlight was the Q&A session with Peter Suber, in which the OA luminary answered questions from the German-speaking community.
In the online meeting tool Gathertown, 19 posters were presented in a poster session, of which three posters were awarded prizes at the end of the Open Access Days in keeping with tradition.
Presentations and posters are available on the Zenodo repository. All available recordings of keynotes, sessions and workshops will soon be uploaded to the AV portal of TIB Hannover.
Participation in the Open Access Days was free of charge and did not require registration.
Many thanks to the team and all guests for a successful event.