The Cost of Knowledge
October 19-25, 2026
The theme for this year’s International Open Access (OA) Week is “The Cost of Knowledge”. The 2026 theme addresses an important aspect about the open access movement: Free access to high-quality information is a human right, yet the cost to freely access quality information continues to rise. One example of rising costs is the article processing charge (APC) paid by an author to a publisher to make research openly available. Another perhaps less-obvious example are costs covered by libraries for read-and-publish agreements with various publishers. What are some pathways for a UNL author to publish OA?
The University Libraries answers this question in a variety of ways – with Open Access (OA) publishing agreements and the Digital Commons institutional repository (IR), with SANDY (Nebraska’s Research Data Repository), and by providing consultation and resources for instructors interested in using, adapting, or creating Open Educational Resources (OER).
Events
OCT
21
OCT
23
OA Publishing Agreements
Since 2022, the Libraries have entered into publishing agreements with selected major academic publishers to cover OA APCs for UNL authors, while ensuring that the authors retain rights to their work.
An increasing number of UNL authors have been taking advantage of the opportunity to make their publications openly accessible. Since 2022, 715 articles were published by UNL authors under these agreements. The most popular publisher in this regard has been Wiley, with 571 OA articles, followed by Cambridge University Press and IOP Press, with 71 and 49 articles respectively. However, a couple of these agreements have remained largely untapped; to date, no OA articles have been published under the agreements with the Microbiology Society and the Company of Biologists.
To see the full list of publishers covered by UNL’s OA publishing agreements, visit UNL’s OA Publishing Agreements Guide.
Repositories
Top countries for usage include (in alpha order) Brazil (491,989), Canada (202,002), China (1,991,350), India (273,380), Indonesia (185,609), Philippines (228,075), Singapore (565,057), UK (274,974), USA (5,514.444), Vietnam (1,063,058)
Digital Commons
Established in 2005 as a collaborative service of the UNL Libraries, the goal of the Digital Commons IR is to provide free access to locally-created scholarly works. Full-text articles are made available to a worldwide audience.
UNL’s Digital Commons has the third most items among IRs in the United States and its content experiences the greatest number of downloads; from July 1, 2025 – June 30, 2026, there were nearly 14 million downloads as people from all over the world engaged with UNL scholarly works.
Digital Commons also provides a platform for faculty to publish their own OA journals. The Nebraska Journal on Advancing Justice, from the College of Law, is an “online, peer-reviewed, and open access law journal.”
Danielle Jefferis, Associate Professor of Law and faculty editor of the Nebraska Journal on Advancing Justice said that OA publishing benefits the legal field in several ways.
“OA publishing can broaden the richness and depth of legal scholarship,” explained Jefferis. “The legal field could benefit from open access research as well, lawyers, judges, advocates in the community could all benefit from the ideas explored in open access legal scholarship.”
SANDY Research Data Repository
In late 2024, the University Libraries launched a new research data repository, SANDY: Stewarding Nebraska Data that accepts research data for public access from affiliates in the Nebraska University system. SANDY adheres to the FAIR data ecosystem standard and meets federal government expectations for repositories that share research outputs from federally funded research.
The new repository provides researchers with statistics of views, downloads, and clicks on their data sets, and provides persistent identifiers so data can be cited and shared easily. Deposits in the repository have been downloaded thousands of times. To add to the data repository, follow the instructions in the Data Repository Guide.
Sandy.unl.edu has had 27 data deposits, 1,404 downloads. Top research areas for downloads include Natural Resources, Education, Biological Sciences.
Open Educational Resources (OER)
OER cost savings of $6,000,000, impacting 60,000 students in 150 unique courses.
The University Libraries are a key partner in the campus-wide STAR initiative, which has supported UNL faculty that use, adapt, or create their own OER with OER seed grants that have saved students over $6 million in textbook costs since the spring of 2019. From Spring semester 2019-Spring semester 2026, OER have been used in at least 149 UNL classes, increasing pedagogical flexibility for instructors and making education more affordable for over 60,000 students.
The Libraries provide resources and consultation for instructors interested in integrating OER in their courses. The Libraries’ OER website provides information for instructors interested in OER, including how to find and evaluate existing resources, guidance on copyright and licensing, and OER grant opportunities. See also the growing collection of UNL-affiliated OER in the Digital Commons.
How to get involved:
- Publish OA in a journal covered by an OA publishing agreement: https://unl.libguides.com/oa-agreements
- Submit your vita to Sue Gardner, Scholarly Communications Librarian or Linnea Fredrickson, Scholarly Communications Production Specialist, to include your published research in the Digital Commons
- Submit your data for publication in SANDY
- Consider applying for an OER grant.