The State of Open Access in Texas Institutions

This panel will include representatives of institutions across Texas engaged in Open Access and broader Open Agenda outreach and implementation. Attendees will hear about policy development, outreach, infrastructure, investments, and staffing at the University of Texas at Austin, Texas Tech, the University of North Texas, the University of Texas Rio Grande Valley, and Texas A&M University, including the integration and interoperability of repositories, authority control records, and other initiatives that support open scholarship. The panel will discuss future possibilities for statewide collaboration, building upon existing initiatives like the Texas Digital Library and the various Open Educational Resource adoption projects. Panelists will share successful outreach strategies from their perspective campuses. One major focus point is the Promotion and Tenure process, and how this process may not promote and sometimes even dissuades faculty from publishing in OA journals or self-archiving manuscripts. Given the statewide interest in OA funds, there will also be opportunities to discuss sources of funding and cost-offsetting in negotiations with publishers who charge APCs. The panel will also touch on concerns commonly raised by faculty members including the OA publishing learning curve, mandates and other demands placed on faculty, and concerns about academic freedom that we see playing out in the debate over Plan S and how that debate might influence the discussion in the United States.