Open Access Escape Room: the key to OA engagement?

Open access (OA) has had, and will continue to have, a significant effect on the scholarly publishing landscape in academia, yet many academic staff publish OA in order to comply with policies, rather than engaging with the value of open scholarship and in debates that ultimately affect them. Traini...

Full description

Bibliographic Details
Main Author: Katrine Sundsbø
Format: Article
Language:English
Published: Ubiquity Press 2019-02-01
Series:Insights: The UKSG Journal
Subjects:
Online Access:https://insights.uksg.org/articles/459
_version_ 1818757793483587584
author Katrine Sundsbø
author_facet Katrine Sundsbø
author_sort Katrine Sundsbø
collection DOAJ
description Open access (OA) has had, and will continue to have, a significant effect on the scholarly publishing landscape in academia, yet many academic staff publish OA in order to comply with policies, rather than engaging with the value of open scholarship and in debates that ultimately affect them. Training sessions and workshops are often arranged to increase knowledge and awareness in the academic community, but engagement is often low. On the other hand, some academic staff, who already do engage, will happily attend sessions and workshops to increase their knowledge even further. The struggle to increase OA engagement overall could be due to the training not being appealing enough, and academics not being aware of benefits until after they have attended workshops. At the University of Essex, we took a bold, brave and curious approach to increasing engagement during Open Access Week 2018, and created an OA-themed escape room. This resulted in great engagement from students, academic staff and professional services staff, some of whom reported that they never knew how relevant OA was for them. The Open Access Escape Room was a success, and provided a positive environment for conversations around OA.
first_indexed 2024-12-18T06:16:35Z
format Article
id doaj.art-bf750da35ecf4c3a9db7e4d1bc78f4a5
institution Directory Open Access Journal
issn 2048-7754
language English
last_indexed 2024-12-18T06:16:35Z
publishDate 2019-02-01
publisher Ubiquity Press
record_format Article
series Insights: The UKSG Journal
spelling doaj.art-bf750da35ecf4c3a9db7e4d1bc78f4a52022-12-21T21:18:16ZengUbiquity PressInsights: The UKSG Journal2048-77542019-02-0132110.1629/uksg.459423Open Access Escape Room: the key to OA engagement?Katrine Sundsbø0University of EssexOpen access (OA) has had, and will continue to have, a significant effect on the scholarly publishing landscape in academia, yet many academic staff publish OA in order to comply with policies, rather than engaging with the value of open scholarship and in debates that ultimately affect them. Training sessions and workshops are often arranged to increase knowledge and awareness in the academic community, but engagement is often low. On the other hand, some academic staff, who already do engage, will happily attend sessions and workshops to increase their knowledge even further. The struggle to increase OA engagement overall could be due to the training not being appealing enough, and academics not being aware of benefits until after they have attended workshops. At the University of Essex, we took a bold, brave and curious approach to increasing engagement during Open Access Week 2018, and created an OA-themed escape room. This resulted in great engagement from students, academic staff and professional services staff, some of whom reported that they never knew how relevant OA was for them. The Open Access Escape Room was a success, and provided a positive environment for conversations around OA.https://insights.uksg.org/articles/459Open accessescape roomgameengagementscholarly communications
spellingShingle Katrine Sundsbø
Open Access Escape Room: the key to OA engagement?
Insights: The UKSG Journal
Open access
escape room
game
engagement
scholarly communications
title Open Access Escape Room: the key to OA engagement?
title_full Open Access Escape Room: the key to OA engagement?
title_fullStr Open Access Escape Room: the key to OA engagement?
title_full_unstemmed Open Access Escape Room: the key to OA engagement?
title_short Open Access Escape Room: the key to OA engagement?
title_sort open access escape room the key to oa engagement
topic Open access
escape room
game
engagement
scholarly communications
url https://insights.uksg.org/articles/459
work_keys_str_mv AT katrinesundsbø openaccessescaperoomthekeytooaengagement