February 3, 2015

SEC Academic Collaboration Event To Address Scholarly Communication

Texas A&M University will host the first SEC Academic Collaboration event that will focus on scholarly communication

By: Bryant Welbourne
SECU (Twitter: @TheSECU)

Texas A&M University will host the first Southeastern Conference (SEC) Academic Collaboration event, a workshop entitled Developing Partnerships to Advance Open Access Initiatives at SEC Universities, Feb. 6-8 in College Station.

The workshop will bring together two student government representatives and library experts from each SEC university to formulate strategies for providing open access to research articles and textbooks.

“The American higher education system is being challenged to increase access to higher education, improve student learning, and be more engaged in addressing societal grand issues,” said Dr. Bruce Herbert, Director of Scholarly Communications at the Texas A&M University Libraries. “Our workshop seeks to build collaborations across the SEC universities that address these challenges.”

According to Dr. Herbert, open access is the free, immediate, online availability of research articles and textbooks, coupled with the rights to use these articles fully in the digital environment. Open access not only makes research accessible but can also be used to address the rising costs of a college education through the use of open educational resources.

The three-day event will include keynote addresses by nationally recognized experts, group discussions and each university will develop a plan to implement open access programs on campus. The universities will present these plans on the final day.

“To encourage the universities to implement their action plan and share best practices, our program will launch an online discussion forum for SEC student governments to post their experiences, successes, challenges, and plans for promoting relevant initiatives,” said Dr. Herbert.

The SEC Academic Collaboration Award is presented annually to one SEC university to support student-focused collaboration among all SEC universities. The award is part of SECU, the Academic Initiative of the SEC. With SECU, the Conference sponsors, supports and promotes collaborative higher education programs and activities involving administrators, faculty and students at its 14 member universities.