This year’s International Open Access Week theme The Cost of Knowledge invites us to reflect on knowledge as a common good and a human right. Building on last year’s theme, Who Owns our Knowledge?, this year’s discussions examine the financial, human and environment costs of creating and sharing knowledge, particularly when these systems are shaped by private rather than public interests.
At the University of Ottawa, many open research activities, initiatives and partnerships celebrate and support local communities. This year, we are highlighting a few of these projects and invite you to join us in celebrating their impact.
Open Publishing Spotlight
For this year’s Open Access Week, we would like to highlight the library’s Open Publishing Services which provides hosting and publishing services for uOttawa-run journals on the Open Journal System (OJS), developed by the Public Knowledge Project.
The journals are open access (OA) and remove financial barriers for authors since they are diamond OA, meaning they do not charge authors an article processing charge (APC). Even better, they are hosted on OJS, a critical piece of open infrastructure financed by the library. Many of these journals are disseminated on Érudit, benefit from support and funding from the Coalition Publica, and are indexed in the Directory of Open Access Journals.
This year, we would like to showcase two special publishing initiatives from this program. Narrowing it down isn’t easy since every journal is unique, publishing valuable research in their field.
In this spotlight, we are featuring a student-run bilingual journal, Politika, the Undergraduate Journal of International Affairs, Politics and Policy, and the three publishing activities of the Society for Transparency, Openness, and Replication in Kinesiology (STORK), which supports the field through its preprint server (SportRxiv), a peer-reviewed diamond OA journal (CiK), and a catalog of open books (KBooks).
We encourage you to explore the full list of all faculty and student-run journals the library hosts.
The open publishing initiatives of the Society for Transparency, Openness, and Replication in Kinesiology (STORK)
The STORK society’s aim is “to elevate research methods across all domains related to movement sciences, including sports, exercise, physical activity, physiology, biomechanics, neuroscience, rehabilitation sciences, nutrition.”
What makes them special? They walk the open talk! Their values are grounded in transparency, openness and replicability, and therefore their practices include pre-registration, replication, open sharing of data and code, preprints, open peer reviews, and more.
The library hosts their publishing activities on three Public Knowledge Project platforms to support STORK: Open Journal Systems, Open Preprint Systems and Open Monograph Press.
Discover STORK’s publishing:
- SportRxiv - the first community-led and open access subject repository dedicated to sport, exercise, performance, and health research.
Take a look at the various preprints, among other publishing outputs, that enable faster dissemination of research, facilitate immediate feedback, or protect intellectual property. Learn more about the repository!
- Communications in Kinesiology – STORK’s flagship diamond open access journal.
View their current issue (Vol 8, 2026), and past issues. You’ll notice the various supplementary materials, like peer reviews, data and code, preregistrations and more that align with STORKs values!
- KBooks- Kinesiology Books publishes open-access scholarly and educational texts in kinesiology, sport science, exercise science, and related fields.
KBooks are useful for teaching, learning, research, and evidence-based practice.
Politika – Undergraduate Journal of International Affairs, Politics, and Policy
The International, Political and Policy Studies Student Association (IPPSSA) approached the library to host their journal, Politika, in 2025. There are several student-run journals the library hosts, offering invaluable training opportunities for students to learn about the full publishing process as journal editors, from submissions, peer review, and copyediting to the final publication!
Politika, the Undergraduate Journal of International Affairs, Politics and Policy is a bilingual, peer-reviewed publication. It publishes academic articles, commentary, and opinion pieces written by undergraduate students on international affairs, politics, political theory, and public policy.
The journal is a subsidiary of the International, Political and Policy Studies Student Association, which represents undergraduate students in political science, public administration, international studies and modern languages at the University of Ottawa.
Check out Politika’s most current volume, Vol 3 No 1, or even their Op-Eds.