The Toronto Metropolitan University Library Open Access Wall of Fame honours researchers who have demonstrated a commitment to ensuring their research is open and available to all and aims to acknowledge and support those who consider open access avenues when publishing their work. Open Access material is scholarly work that is made legally available on the public Internet with no restrictions so the anyone can access the full text.
Faculty, graduate students, and researchers who have published through gold and/or green open access resources, or have otherwise demonstrated a commitment to Open Access through Open Data or the use/development of Open Education Resources (OER), are eligible for entry.
Green open access publishing is the self-archiving of articles or other materials published in an institutional or central repository or other Open Access website. Articles do not need to be published in Open Access journals to be green as long as they are archived in a repository. TMU Library supports green open access efforts through its Digital Repository, RShare.
Gold open access publishing is when articles are published in any journal that is Open Access with immediate, free access. TMU Library supports gold open access publishing through investments in memberships with prestigious open access publishers.
For the inaugural class, nominees have been selected by the Scholarly Communications Working Group. In subsequent years, an open nomination process will be employed. Normally, there will be two awardees per year. Nominees will be asked to supply a CV highlighting their open access citations, a headshot, and a short statement that declares their interest in and support for open access.
Those included in the Open Access wall of impact will be honoured with a poster highlighting their accomplishments. Nominees will also be spotlighted in the scholarly communications blog.