Engaging Undergraduates in Scholarly Communication

The open access movement has typically engaged graduate students and faculty in discussions and advocacy around changing the scholarly communication landscape. Undergraduates, however, have an important role to play as future graduate students, scholars, and as citizens, one that should catalyze librarians who serve this population to acknowledge and act on a shared educational imperative. Undergraduate student awareness of, and engagement with, issues such as open access, public access, creator rights, and the economics of publishing should become part of our mission and vision of undergraduate education so students can become effective advocates for access to their own work, or for access to research that can aid them in becoming informed and critical researchers, consumers, and citizens