Join us for the Open Access Week 2012
Kickoff Webcast and Reception

Perspectives on Open Access:
Practice, Progress and Pitfalls

Monday, October 22
4:00 – 5:30pm EST

A distinguished panel of speakers representing a broad range of stakeholders in the Open Access movement—researchers, students, policy makers, publishers and academics—will discuss why Open Access is an imperative to them and their work:

• Michael Carroll, Professor of Law, American University and founding Board Member, Creative Commons 
• Matt Cooper, President, The National Association of Graduate-Professional Students 
• Maricel Kann, Assistant Professor, University of Maryland and member, PubMed Central National Advisory Committee, NIH.
• Carlos Rossel, Publisher, The World Bank
• Neil Thakur, Special Assistant to the Deputy Director, Extramural Research, National Institutes of Health (NIH)

The 90-minute panel will be moderated by Heather Joseph, Executive Director, SPARC, with ample time for questions from audience members.

SPARC will sponsor a reception at the World Bank for those attending and participating in the panel discussion.

Open Access Week is now in its sixth year, and offers an opportunity for the academic and research community to continue to learn about the potential benefits of Open Access, to share what they’ve learned with colleagues, and to help inspire wider participation in helping to make Open Access a new norm in scholarship and research. Last year’s Open Access Week featured events in more than 130 countries. This year’s theme, "Set the Default to Open Access", will continue to advance the global conversation, and showcase the many steps taken all over the world towards Open Access initiatives. For information about Open Access week events and information please go to http://www.openaccessweek.org.

SPARC (Scholarly Publishing and Academic Resources Coalition), with SPARC Europe and SPARC Japan, is an international alliance of more than 800 academic and research libraries working to create a more open system of scholarly communication. SPARC's advocacy, educational, and publisher partnership programs encourage expanded dissemination of research. SPARC is on the Web at http://www.arl.org/sparc/.

The World Bank is a vital source of financial and technical assistance to developing countries around the world. The World Bank was recently named a SPARC Innovator for its implementation of a new open access policy, which included the launch of the World Bank Open Knowledge Repository (OKR). The World Bank opened its data to the public in 2010. For more information on World Bank open development tools and resources, visit www.worldbank.org/open.

1818 H St. NW   |   Washington, DC 20433