University of Kansas joins HELIOS Open to advance open scholarship
The University of Kansas has joined the Higher Education Leadership Initiative for Open Scholarship (HELIOS Open), a cohort of universities and colleges committed to advancing open scholarship to promote inclusivity, transparency, and trustworthiness in the research ecosystem.
KU is the 100th member of HELIOS Open, which emerged from the National Academies of Sciences, Engineering, and Medicine’s Roundtable on Aligning Incentives for Open Scholarship. HELIOS Open is a collaborative community that brings together university leaders and strategic organizations including federal agencies, philanthropies, and international partners to promote open access and transparency in research and scholarship, rethinking how knowledge is created and shared.
KU’s HELIOS Open membership will build on KU and KU Libraries’ history of supporting open scholarship, through Open Access advocacy, article publishing support, scholarly communication and copyright issues, KU ScholarWorks repository, Digital Publishing services, and partnership in research data management and sharing. KU Libraries’ work currently includes the digital publication of 56 open journals, hosting nearly 30,000 items in KU ScholarWorks, and the libraries’ open education resources and initiatives account for an estimated $1.1 million in cost savings annually for KU students.
KU Libraries’ Associate Dean of Research Engagement Scott Hanrath will serve as the university representative.
“KU’s participation in the HELIOS Open community provides opportunities to engage with peer institutions to shape shared infrastructure, best practices, and policies that support open scholarship that is inclusive, transparent, and trustworthy,” Hanrath said. “Resources created by HELIOS Open working groups have already been informative in planning efforts."
HELIOS Open activities include working groups to develop actionable policies, resources, guidance, metrics, and infrastructure in support of open scholarship, as well as presentations and discussion on topics such as generative AI and open scholarship, data stewardship and sharing, and researcher incentives.
“HELIOS Open is facilitating conversations on dynamic and important directions in research and scholarship," Hanrath said. “KU's membership will assist stakeholders throughout KU to more deeply engage in these issues. We welcome interest and involvement from across our campus."
Dean of KU Libraries Carol Smith applauds the development.
“From our campus open access policy to our established record of open publishing, the University of Kansas has been a longstanding leader in the open access movement,” Smith said. “Joining HELIOS Open is a natural progression in our ongoing work to transform the scholarly publishing model. We greatly appreciate Provost Bichelmeyer’s support to make KU the 100th member institution of this respected community for best practices in open scholarship.”