HELIOS Open Workstreams & Outputs

HELIOS Open participants collaborate with key campus actors, peers at other participating institutions, and representatives from philanthropies, governmental agencies, professional societies, and other contributors to the scholarly ecosystem. From 2022 to 2024, members met periodically, as a collective and in focused working groups, to develop actionable policies, resources, guidance, metrics, and infrastructure in support of open scholarship.

Considering our expanding membership and active network, HELIOS Open evolved its working group structures and programming in 2024 to more agilely collaborate across the membership to tackle collective open scholarship opportunities.

This page will we updated as new working groups, interest groups, and collective resources are developed.

  • Co-Leads: Chris Bourg, Director of Libraries at MIT; LaKeisha Harris, Dean, School of Graduate Studies and Research at University of Maryland Eastern Shore; Alzada Tipton, Provost at Whitman College

  • Co-Leads: Cynthia Logsdon, Director of Research Academic Programs within the University of Louisville's Executive Vice President for Research; Mairéad Martin, CIO at the University of Illinois; Alicia Salaz, Vice Provost and University Librarian at the University of Oregon;

    Former Lead: John Wilkin, Dean of Libraries at the University of Illinois (March 2022-November 2022)

  • Co-Leads: Dustin Fife, College Librarian at Colorado College; Athena Jackson, Dean of Libraries at the University of Houston; and Stephen Jacobs, Director of Open@RIT at RIT

  • Co-Leads: Kimberly Cox-York, Research Integrity Officer at Colorado State University; and Bill Anderson, Associate Vice President for Research at Florida International University

Institutional & Departmental Policy Working Group

Ongoing Work

The Institutional and Departmental Policy Working Group is developing strategies for engaging campus leaders in discussions around aligning hiring, reappointment, tenure, and promotion decisions with institutional values. The group has drafted an RPT Joint Statement in support of this effort and socializing the statement among leaders. This statement is not endorsed by all HELIOS Open institutions, but a work product used for discussion during working group meetings and among campus partners.

“Meeting New Federal Requirements for Research Access: Opportunities for Leadership Action” Issue Brief

In January 2023, members of this working group contributed to an issue brief, disseminated to campus leadership, urging decision-makers to (1) stimulate further campus discussions on open scholarship; (2) begin surfacing core concerns and considerations about aligning with emerging federal directives; and (3) leverage the collective power of HELIOS Open to align higher ed and cross-sector strategies.

Last updated: 1/23/2023

Shared Open Infrastructure Working Group

The Shared Open Infrastructure Working Group developed the “Scholarly Communication Infrastructure Guide: Buy, Build, or Partner” to support college and university leadership in making informed infrastructure decisions. The HELIOS Open working group recommends:

Last updated: 5/8/2023

Infrastructure Brief

The Shared Open Infrastructure Working Group framed the importance of infrastructure as an enabler of a modern and efficient research ecosystem in this Issue Brief for institutional leaders.

The purpose of this document is to highlight partnership opportunities in open scholarly communications infrastructure. This brief was prepared for HELIOS Open members by Zach Chandler (Stanford), who asserts "we can realize a higher order of benefit to open scholarship if we engage in collective action, and explore partnerships and integrations."

This brief does not reflect the opinion of all HELIOS Open members, and active development of this work continues online in a separate V2 document, with additional co-authors and perspectives.

Good Practices in Open Scholarship Working Group

HELIOS Good Practices Working Group Pitch Deck

The Good Practices in Open Scholarship Working Group is developing a product specification and timeline for an open scholarship support service. The goal is to ensure “open” is easier for any researcher at any point of need, from tenured faculty to early career researcher. It is envisioned that the support service will grow with other sectors’ support (federal agencies, philanthropies, and societies and associations). The service aims to centralize existing campus support services for institutions that have them (libraries, grants and compliance office), support those that do not, and expand the network of support at the disciplinary level (i.e., link scholars to a network of disciplinary peers).

Next Steps:

  • Engage other sectors (professional societies, federal agencies) in discussions about what it might take to prototype a support service, with initial focus in a specific discipline.

  • Continue developing the vision, timeline, and features and functionality.

Last updated: 12/1/2022

Cross-Sector Alignment Working Group

The Cross-Sector Alignment Working Group is working on a set of “offers” – what HELIOS Open members, and the higher education community more generally, can bring to the cross-sector conversation to catalyze open scholarship, and “asks” – what is needed from other groups (funders, societies, government agencies, etc.) to optimize and scale these efforts. Informed by the work of the other HELIOS Open working groups, this team will focus on effectively engaging with complementary sectors to develop, harmonize, and scale (a) open scholarship incentives within and beyond Reappointment, Promotion and Tenure guidelines; (b) open scholarship good practices guidance that makes it easier for individual scholars to share their work; and (c) infrastructure to improve the storage, curation, discoverability, and reuse of open scholarship.

Next Steps:

  • Engage other sectors (professional societies, federal agencies) in discussions about asks and offers.

  • Continue liaising with other working groups to develop and refine asks and offers.

Last updated: 12/1/2022