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The Boulder Faculty Assembly heard from the University Libraries, the Office of Institutional Equity and Compliance Office and others during their monthly meeting on Thursday, Nov. 7.

State of Open Access Report

The University Libraries has released a State of Open Access report annually since 2018. , their sixth, saw many new initiatives with regard to open access on campus, but also references negotiations with the academic publisher Elsevier from this past year, which have now been settled.

Some of the main findings from the report and this past year include:

• There’s a trend towards open access on campus, with an estimated 75% of CU Boulder’s 2023 articles being openly available.
• There’s a new that faculty can check out and a new bank account code that will help libraries better benchmark data for future negotiations with academic publishers.
• The estimated total cost of the article processing charges, which are the fees authors are required to pay for some types of open access journals, were about $6.6 million total.
• CU Boulder lost access to some articles during the Elsevier negotiations, but added to make up for some of that.

For those considering open access, the Libraries also launched the OA funding recommender this past year, which can help authors find contracts or discounts to help offset the cost.

“We need your help to continue making CU research more widely available,” said Robert McDonald, dean of the University Libraries and the senior vice provost of online and extended education.

More information on the State of Open Access Report is available on the .

From OIEC

Earlier this year, OIEC was featured in two different local media stories about their office’s investigatory process discussing their decision not to pursue an investigation. In response, Llen Pomeroy, an associate vice chancellor and CU Boulder’s Title IX coordinator, provided insight into what is happening to cases where investigations are not occurring and why the OIEC may not investigate every report into its office.

OIEC looks into every case that comes their way through what’s called a preliminary inquiry. Cases that don’t get pursued are largely either because they do not meet the objective standard under the law or the university’s nondiscrimination policy, or because the person affected doesn’t want to pursue action through a formal investigative process.

“I just want to make clear that complainant agency is really fundamental to what we do, and I think it would be highly inappropriate if a report came to our office and, without reaching out to the complainant, having a better understanding of the facts and circumstances as well as what the complainant wanted to see happen, we were off to the races investigating someone formally,” Pomeroy said, adding:

“If someone is wanting a more informal or an educational remedy, that is happening for those cases.”

During their presentation, OIEC also provided a reminder about the Sexual Assault and Related Harms survey and encouraged everyone to remind their students to fill it out. It should take only 10 to 15 minutes and will close on Dec. 1.

Academic Technology Survey

Earlier this year, the Office of Information Technology conducted a survey among students and instructors of record (including faculty and graduate part-time instructors) to see how well—or not—academic technology (Slate, iClickers, Zoom, etc.) is being used on campus. What they found is, while there’s room for improvement, things seem to be functioning well.

The main area students and faculty alike focused on in the survey was Canvas. For faculty, feedback revolved around designing their courses, and for students, it was an inconsistent experience class-to-class. To address this, OIT is working with the Center for Teaching & Learning and other units and faculty around campus to create a template that faculty can use when creating their class.

“We’re hoping that this addresses some of the challenges faculty face so they can focus more on the content of their courses,” said the CTL’s director Kirk Ambrose.

More about the template will be announced in the February meeting.

In other BFA business

• In December, the BFA will be voting to change the current BFA structure, where the chair will serve in a one year position, with the year before serving as chair-elect and the year after being an immediate past chair. This, current BFA chair Shelly Miller says, will bring more continuity to the role and mirrors CU Faculty Council and many AAU peer faculty senate structures.
• BFA will also be voting in December about standing committee changes, including updates to four committees to make them more relevant and reflective of current university climate.
• There was also a request for a two-week notice to the BFA to allow Miller to endorse a letter from colleges and universities across the state regarding concerns about the Colorado Commission on Higher Education’s proposal to allow Colorado institutions of higher education to offer a 90-credit bachelor’s degree (in contrast to the 120 credits required now). The letter recommends that if the state is going to allow such degrees, they should be called something other than a bachelor’s degree.
• Finally, BFA is soliciting nominees for the Faculty Athletics Representative. More information about the position is available on the Academic Affairs website.

Learn more about the BFA and previous actions on the BFA website.