Why I Am Attending OpenCon 2014: Experiences, Values, Goals.

My name is Scott St. Louis, and I am a former Vice President for Educational Affairs on the Student Senate at Grand Valley State University (GVSU) in the metropolitan area of Grand Rapids, Michigan, USA. I am a fourth-year Honors undergraduate student studying history with a double minor in political science and French. I am also an Associate Editor for the Directory of Open Access Journals, and a member of the Early-Career Researchers' Forum for the Open Library of Humanities.

I first became involved with Open Access (OA) and Open Educational Resources (OER) during my freshman year of college, when I worked with the academic librarians at my university to write a resolution that made GVSU Student Senate the first student organization from Michigan to join the Right to Research Coalition (R2RC). The resolution was passed unanimously by the Senate in April 2013.

With the support of my fellow Senators, a number of offices on campus, and Lee Van Orsdel, GVSU Dean of Libraries, I built upon the Senate’s strong interest in OA and OER by attending the August 2013 General Assembly of R2RC in Budapest, Hungary, where I learned about on-campus advocacy and became connected to the broader OA/OER movement. Back in the United States, I put what I had learned in Budapest into action by leading the GVSU Student Senate’s observation of International OA Week in October 2013. More specifically, I developed a social media campaign to initiate the university-wide distribution of online educational materials related to OA and OER, an endeavor which earned partnership from social media liaisons in the Office of Student Life, the Office of Undergraduate Research and Scholarship, the Office of Fellowships, the Honors College, University Libraries, the school newspaper, and two student-operated undergraduate journals at GVSU. In March of 2014, I served as co-lecturer (with the aforementioned Lee Van Orsdel) in a public presentation on OA, held in the recently completed Mary Idema Pew Library at GVSU. Entitled “The Cost of Closed Doors: Improving Higher Education Through Open Access,” the lecture drew an audience of around 40 students, faculty, and members of the general public.

Upon the end of my second year of undergraduate study in April 2014, I accepted a position as Digital Intern for Research and Community Outreach with the Scholarly Publishing and Academic Resources Coalition (SPARC), the parent organization of R2RC.

As an emerging information professional with a strong interest in the rich history and changing landscape of scholarly communication, I plan to use my experience at OpenCon 2015 to build productive relationships with students and early-career researchers who hold similar passions and ideas for the future. No advocate can bring meaningful change without finding a productive niche in a broader community of like-minded people; thus, my experience at OpenCon 2015 will empower me to discover more about how my unique talents and perspectives can be most productively employed in service to anyone whose efforts would benefit from such collaboration. What I learn at OpenCon 2015 will also enable me to develop new methods through which to promote OA and OER at GVSU, and to begin thinking about how to build upon my undergraduate experiences and continue serving as an OA/OER advocate during graduate school.

Please contact me if you are interested in undergraduate student engagement with OA and OER, or if you are seeking the perspective of someone who strives to support the growth of OA in the humanities. I look forward to meeting you!