You know World Book Day, but have you heard about World Book Night? For WBN you don't have to get your kid into a literary costume by the first school bell, all you have to do is curl up with a nice cocoa (or beverage of choice) and enjoy a cracking good read. Find an #OAbook from www.doabooks.org

Does keeping up with REF requirements have you feeling like FrustratedOfficeWorker.jpg? Join our ExplORe Session tomorrow at 11:30 for a simple explainer on what you need to do to make your work REF-eligible. It's a 15-minute session with Q&A. Sign up on coursebooking: www.abdn.ac.uk/coursebookin...

Students are coming back from holiday today and we'll soon be in the Exams period. To help you revise effectively, check out this article from The Conversation on what cognitive science tells us about how to revise theconversation.com/exams-coming...

Yesterday humanity went out the farthest from Earth we've ever been. Accomplishing this required huge numbers of researchers to collaborate on a shared goal. It's a beautiful reminder of what we can accomplish when we work together and share knowledge. What's the 'moon shoot' in your field?

📢Coming up: Social Media for Researchers Training. If you're a researcher looking to improve your #scicomm skills and boost your impact check out this course offered through our Research and Innovation team and conducted by @jamiebgall.co.uk Book on coursebooking: www.abdn.ac.uk/coursebookin...

For Mother's Day, we're thinking about how to enable mothers to thrive in research. Research by the NGO @mothersinsci.bsky.social found that a third of mothers leave science after having children, due to factors such as gender inequality in child-rearing and lack of accommodation by employers.

This could be an incredible opportunity for a student or ECR interested in writing for a general audience. The award includes a £2,000 bursary and mentorship including publishing support #ScienceCommunication h/t @jessbutler.bsky.social

If you're around Edinburgh, be sure and check out our fearless leader Simon Bains, talking about openness in the Arts and Humanities, all part of Scottish Research Integrity and Culture Week!

Do you still need costume ideas for World Book Day, because our friends at AUP have options! Or, if you have enough silver glitter, you could always dress up as #DiamondOpenAccess

Scottish #ResearchIntegrity and Culture Week is finally here! 🎉 Check out the full list of events happening throughout Scotland, both in-person and online, here www.sricw.co.uk/programme

After all of the talks yesterday at the #CopimConference about the importance of accessibility, this feels like great timing

Who's going to the #CopimConference today? We've got a few people down in London -- including our fearless leader @simonjbains.bsky.social who will be speaking about our Thesis preservation project -- but most of us are joining from home. We'll miss meeting colleagues, but there are some advantages😉

Improving research culture will require us to consider some bold ideas, perhaps even a Conference Timekeeping Bear. What's your big idea for research culture?

Check out the amazing things ARL member libraries have been doing for #LoveDataWeek! www.arl.org/blog/arl-lib... #DataScience #DataViz #OpenData #Research #Libraries #LoveData26

This looks like it should be a great event, and we appreciate you making it hybrid so we all can come 😊 Especially looking forward to the keynotes! UoA researchers, be sure to check out the list for events relevant to your work!

Today for #LoveDataWeek we're asking what can you do with large datasets? Well, a team a geologists at Aberdeen, led by @seismoamy.bsky.social have started a massive data gathering project aimed at finding effective spots for generating sustainable geothermal heat in the city abdn.site/GTheat

It's #LoveDataWeek and things are heating up with interesting events that you can log into from anywhere. We wanted to highlight talks hosted by @unisouthampton.bsky.social this week, starting this afternoon with friends from @glasgow.ac.uk about their new Petabyte storage system abdn.site/XY0B7

Next week we're celebrating International Love Data Week! This year's theme is 'Where's the Data?' so we'll be thinking about long term digital preservation and repository security. We'll be posting more next week, but see the official Love Data week site for events and resources abdn.site/3DTA

Have you heard? Scottish Research Integrity & Culture Week is less than a month away! Events will take place both all over Scotland and online and will discuss research ethics, open research, career development, and more! Register now! abdn-research-integrity-and-culture-week.eventsair.site

Would you like to publish in or otherwise support the work of Diamond Open Access journals? Check out the Diamond Discovery Hub created by @craft-oa.bsky.social and launched last October. It has a huge listing of journals and an easy search function ddh.diamas.org/en

A new term has begun! Check out our guide to finding Open Access resources for help finding teaching materials that will be affordable and accessible to all your students, even online students working from abroad who may not be able to use all e-resources licensed by the university abdn.site/x8qKf

On the last day before break our OA community gave to us: a wonderful community! Thanks to everyone who participates in this endeavour of trying to make the world of research dissemination more open, fair, equitable, and human-centered. It isn't always easy, but it's always better in community🥰

On the 2nd day before break the OA community gave to us: our new SciFree Journal Search Tool! This makes it much easier for authors to figure out which journals they can publish in at no cost, even if they don't have funding. Try it out now!

On the 3rd day before break the OA community gave to us: a brand new draft policy for open data from @ukri.org ! This policy will help support researchers making their data open and incorporating FAIR principles into their data management!

On the 4th day before break the OA community gave to us: the @ukri.org Open Access Fund for Books! This funding has dramatically improved many author's ability to publish their books open access. At UoA we've had 2 books and one chapter published through this funding!

On the 5th day before break the OA community gave to us: the launch of the @morphss.bsky.social project! MORPHSS is working to push forward open research in the humanities and social sciences by understanding the unique needs of that community, and we can't wait to see what they accomplish!

On the 6th day before break the OA community gave to us: the sheer joy of seeing our 'Carve your PhD contest spread to new institutions! We were thrilled to see all the contestants (and glorious champion) from @ljmuresearch.bsky.social and hope to see even more get in on the fun next year!

On the 7th day before break, the OA community gave to us: Landmark research into the state of academic publishing. @hansonmark.bsky.social & team produced two papers: 'The Strain/Drain on Scientific Publishing' demonstrating the challenges we face doi.org/10.1162/qss_... doi.org/10.48550/arX...

On the 8th day before break, the Open Access community in 2025 gave to us: the launch of Open Journals Collective! 🎉 With the mission of expanding community funded open access journals @ojcollective.bsky.social is an important project for future of scholarly publishing www.openjournalscollective.org

For Day 9 we see: The Copim Compass! This comprehensive and continuously updated guide from our friends @copim.bsky.social provides resources for anyone wanting to get involved in Open Access book production be you a: author, publisher, editor, software designer or library abdn.site/vNQ3U

There are only 9 more school days before our offices shut for the Holiday break and we're beginning to feel a bit festive! We're going to do an Advent Calendar/Holiday countdown of sorts celebrating our favourite things that have happened in the world of Open Research in the last year!

We're excited for you to try our newest Open Access tool! Read all about it in our latest blog post abdn.site/k8ItZ

🎁This year’s top gift for researchers: A tool that tells UoA researchers exactly which journals they can publish OA in through our institutional publisher agreements. SciFree Journal Search—saving time and APCs www.abdn.ac.uk/library/open...

'Introducing the j-metric: a true measure of what matters in academia' www.nature.com/articles/d41... Hmmmm, we're not sure if this one is DORA-compliant, tbh What do you think, are skewed metrics still dominating academic life, despite our attempts at reform?

Are you confused about the REF2029 open access requirements and how to make sure your work will be eligible? Sign up on coursebooking for our 'ExplORe Session: Guide to the REF2029 Open Access Requirements' and we'll explain it all. Tomorrow at 2PM 📢Only one more day to sign up!🏃 abdn.site/GREF29

Have the changing guidelines for REF left you confused or uncertain? Join us for a session where we demystify the REF29 Open Access guidelines and teach you everything you need to make sure your research is eligible. Sign up on Coursebooking abdn.site/GREF29

After careful calculation by our most talented number ghouls, we are ready to announce the winner of Carve your PhD 2025: Yujun Wang, from the Computing Science department! Her PhD explores how languages express time and temporal relationships, and how these can be understood by LLMs

Polls close tomorrow morning! Get in your votes! Help us choose the next Halloween champion! abdn.site/phD

Entries are in, and here are your finalists for Carve your PhD 2025! Neepie lantern enjoyers please note we have a mix of pumpkins and neeps. You can read about their dissertations and cast your vote at: abdn.site/phD Votes must be in 9:00 on 4 November!

This is something we're working on! We've created guides for finding open access resources aimed at unaffiliated scholars, including those in migrant communities. So far available in English, Ukrainian, and Arabic abdn.site/VPS5D

It's the final day! Entries for 'Carve your PhD' are due today! Carve the best pumpkin (or neep!) and you could win this fabulous trophy, plus £25 in book tokens (cat not included)! 🎃🍬🐈‍⬛🎉 abdn.site/phD

One of our first UKRI funded open access books, Narrative Objects, won the 2025 CMA Book Award, recognizing excellence in museum anthropology! This demonstrates how OA matters, widening access to great scholarship and increasing the impact of your work. Read it here: doi.org/10.4324/9780...

Did you know today is National #BlackCatDay 🐈‍⬛? Which seems like the perfect opportunity to remind you, there are only four more days to get in your entries for Carve your PhD! our annual contest to depict your thesis topic in pumpkin form. Details here: abdn.site/phD

It looks like we're in for a dark and stormy weekend so why not stay in with a cosy drink and a Halloween playlist and make your entry for our Carve Your PhD contest! Carve the best representation of your thesis topic in pumpkin form and win the admiration of all, plus £25 book tokens! abdn.site/phD

For #OAWeek we had a wonderful event on how we in @aberdeenunilib.bsky.social can, using Open resources and radical hospitality, support #NewScots from scholarly backgrounds to stay connected with their field. We had great support from Grampian Regional Equality Council and Aberdeen City library

We're finish #OAWeek with a data horror story, looking at who owns public data vs. who controls public data. What happens when public goods are destroyed, and how we can fight back and protect our communal knowledge abdn.site/PZDRH

From disappearing journals, we turn consider what editors need to look for if they're thinking of moving their journal to a different (more open) publisher, for #OAWeek abdn.site/nbp8W

We're thinking about 'Who Owns our Knowledge' for #OAWeek Francesca Soldati has looked at one way ownership comes up, writing about what happens to your work if the journal you published in vanishes abdn.site/JI6iu

Who Owns Our Knowledge? It's International Open Access Week 2025! 😍 Have a look at our webpage which features a curated list of events we think will be of interest to the #CopimCommunity and interviews with the team 🔗 buff.ly/r8pRBZD #OAWeek 1/6

This International #OAWeek the theme is 'Who Owns our Knowledge?', so here’s a poll to see how much you know about who owns yours. Do you: 1️⃣ Read every word of your publishing contracts 2️⃣ Definitely give 'em a skim 3️⃣ Know the basic terms of your usual publishers 4️⃣ Sign on the Line 📊 Show results