SPARC Launches a Broader “Open Agenda” & Revamped Website

Statement by SPARC Executive Director, Heather Joseph:

Over the past year, while we continued busily advocating for open policies, producing educational resources for our members, and convening and participating in workshops and conferences around the globe, SPARC also undertook a comprehensive analysis of the current state of the open landscape, and re-assessed our role in it.
While clear challenges remain, the good news is we’ve gained significant ground since our founding in 1998 – and it’s clear we have generated tremendous momentum in our mission to make open the default for research and education.
Now is the perfect time to capitalize on this momentum, and we’re kicking off 2016 with a couple of important changes:

• The Open Agenda. For many years, we’ve been best known for our advocacy on open access to research articles. But as our members know, SPARC takes a holistic view of the scholarly communications landscape, and recently added programs promoting open data and educational resources to our roster. As things have progressed, we’ve come to view open access, open data, and open education as essential components of a much broader “Open Agenda.” So we’re ramping up our efforts to embrace the Open Agenda as a comprehensive platform for knowledge sharing and innovation.

• Sparcopen.org. We’re pleased to announce the launch of a completely revamped website at a new location: sparcopen.org. You’ll find the wealth of resources SPARC has always provided along with new resources, including stories detailing the impact of the Open Agenda.  The impact stories on Open Access, Open Data and Open Education, are quite compelling and might be particularly helpful as you work on stories. You can find our initial batch here.  They’ll be updated regularly so remember to check back.

We’re challenging ourselves here at SPARC to focus on the larger outcomes that a successful move toward open might have – the problems that can be more easily solved, and the new opportunities for innovation that can be enabled.

Filed under: Data Files, News, Open Access, Scholarly Communications