Open Values Statement

Open Values

At Rowan University Libraries (RUL), we support open principles and practices in the creation, dissemination and open access to research, scholarship, and creative works. Whenever possible, RUL believes in removing barriers to the creation, sharing, and access to knowledge and information. Our support for open access is rooted in our commitment to:

Increase the visibility and impact of Rowan University research on a national and global scale
Facilitate equitable access to scholarly materials for the betterment of society
Enable interdisciplinary research collaboration via open scholarship and open infrastructure
Create opportunities for innovative scholarship through open sharing and reuse of research outputs
Facilitate making publicly funded research openly available to all

What is Open Access? What does it mean to me?

The Scholarly Publishing and Academic Resources Coalition (SPARC) defines open access as “the free, immediate, online availability of research articles combined with the rights to use these articles fully in the digital environment.” RUL supports Rowan authors in making their work openly available via the gold or green open access routes.

Rowan University Libraries strive to leverage their position as part of a growing university and a research institution to contribute to and shape the future of open access. We provide:

Individual Support – Librarians can help researchers navigate author rights and open access funding agency requirements, help assign Digital Object Identifiers (DOIs) to scholarly publications and research objects, aid in identifying reputable open access journals and avoiding predatory journals, and assist in depositing a researcher’s work in the institutional repository (Rowan Digital Works) or in discipline-specific repositories.
Open Access Publishing Fund - Tenure-track and tenured faculty at the Glassboro campus may apply to the Open Access Publishing Fund when publishing in a gold open access journal. More information about the policy and eligibility criteria can be found at https://rdw.rowan.edu/oa_pubfund/
Training and Education – Through one-on-one consultation, outreach, and workshops, librarians generate awareness of the benefits of OA for researchers and the communities they serve.
Self-Archiving Support – Rowan University Libraries provides our community with access to Rowan Digital Works, an open access platform to disseminate the research, scholarship, and creative works created by Rowan researchers. This platform hosts Rowan’s theses & dissertations and other student scholarship, as well as conference proceedings, datasets, videos, and more. Rowan Digital Works also offers a platform to host and publishopen access journals [e.g. Cooper Rowan Medical Journal and Rowan Osteopathic Medical Journal].
Institutional Memberships – We have secured institutional memberships with open access publishers and organizations that advocate, develop, and advance open access and open infrastructure. Here are Rowan University Libraries’ current “open” commitments:
- Memberships and Organizations
- Digital Asset Management and Publishing Platforms
  - Islandora
  - Omeka
- Rowan University Library Negotiated Publisher Agreements
  - Cambridge University Press
  - PLOS Community Action Publishing - PLOS Biology and PLOS Medicine

We acknowledge that the open ecosystem is evolving, and experimentation is necessary in order for libraries, publishers, and our communities to find sustainable models for open research. We welcome your feedback and suggestions on how we can enhance or improve our commitment to open access and support your open access needs better.

Contact info:

Campbell Library:https://askus.lib.rowan.edu/campbell

CMSRU Library:CMSRUlibrarian@rowan.edu

SOM Health Sciences Library:RowanSOMLibrary@rowan.edu