This presentation explores the challenges that librarians and graduate schools face in encouraging open access behaviours. While librarians realize the benefits of open access research for both current students and society as a whole, many disparate factors often converge, causing academic departments to actively counteract open access research practices. We will discuss some of the challenges such as geographic location and social climate, the beliefs about publishing opportunities lost or gained by open access ETDs, and student beliefs about future profits and the actual statistics.

As the 4th largest university in the country and the 6th place leader in granting graduate degrees to minorities, FIU’s has a unique population and a fast evolving ETD process. This presentation hopes to help other librarians and graduate schools in growing universities with diverse populations by exploring our trials and errors more in-depth. With this in mind, we will also explore which disciplines at Florida International University (FIU) are well aligned with the principles of open access and which disciplines are least likely to allow it, including a new approach away from ETDs altogether. Finally, we will take a look at the embargo options available at FIU and which ones are most utilized and by which disciplines.

Additionally, we will explore the ways in which FIU is attempting to make open access research more appealing by enriching the metadata record and customizing our Digital Commons institutional repository. FIU is currently promoting the inclusion of supplementary files and the creation of ORCID identifiers. We will discuss the efforts undertaken thus far and the results regarding departmental and student interest in ORCID.

The hope is that this presentation will give others a chance to learn from what has worked for FIU in regards to open access, ORCID, and our institutional repository as well as from our various surveys on these topics. This should engender a lively discussion on the attitudes of students in regards to open access and the advice they receive from their respective departments.