Open Access Scholarship: Amplifying Reach, Enhancing Collaboration, and Empowering Education

In this presentation, we highlight three benefits of leveraging open educational resources in academia. Our experiences as open access advocates and key contributors to OER projects will be supported by compelling analytics, highlighting the potential of open access publishing. We will first discuss how OER increases impact and visibility in that it liberates research from paywalls, granting unrestricted global access. This wider reach leads to greater readership, amplifying the influence of research within and beyond academia. Next, we will discuss enhanced citations and collaboration, highlighting how open access fosters a culture of knowledge-sharing and community across disciplines, thereby reducing the siloization of academic knowledge and promoting transparent research practices. Third, we will focus on how OER leads to greater reach and inclusivity by providing more equitable access to resources for both students and faculty. Ultimately, OER empowers individuals to benefit from cutting-edge research and enriching materials, fostering inclusivity in education and research