Dean Wang Joins SPARC Steering Committee

Xuemao Wang, dean and university librarian, has been selected to serve on the Steering Committee of the Scholarly Publishing and Academic Resources Coalition (SPARC), a group that advocates for open access, open education and open data.

SPARC is a global coalition of 200+ academic and research libraries that works to enable open sharing of research output and educational materials in order to “democratize access to knowledge, accelerate discovery and increase the return on investment in research and education.” To achieve this mission, SPARC collaborates with authors, publishers, libraries, students, policymakers and the public to build opportunities and promote changes to make open access the default for research and education.

“SPARC’s commitment to promote open access to scholarly articles, the open sharing of research data and the creation and adoption of open educational resources aligns perfectly with the academic mission of the University of Cincinnati and the goals of the Third Century plan,” said Beverly Davenport, senior vice president for academic affairs and provost. “I see Xuemao’s new role on the SPARC Steering Committee as a tremendous opportunity to promote the broad understanding and awareness back to our campuses on the Open Access, Open Education and Open Data movement. I look forward to working with him on this strategically important higher education agenda.”

The SPARC Steering Committee provides programmatic decision-making support for the executive director. Committee members are expected to demonstrate leadership and support action to drive constructive change in scholarly communication. Dean Wang will serve on the Steering Committee from January 2016 through December 2018. He joins colleagues from such institutions as the University of Texas at Austin, the University of Kansas, Purdue University and the University of California, Los Angeles among others.

“It is an honor to be asked to serve on the SPARC Steering Committee,” said Xuemao Wang. “I hope that my varied experience in digital scholarship and in promoting open access to resources, especially digital, can provide insight and guidance to this coalition. Open access to information has long been a tenet of libraries as it provides opportunity for students and scholars alike in both the sharing and availability of research and data. With UC Libraries moving into the second year of our strategic plan implementation, and with significant digital infrastructure and partnership build up, we are primed to be a catalyst for promoting open access, open education and open data across the university.

For more about SPARC, visit their website at http://sparcopen.org/.