Pillar 1: Education
Support and enrich UAB’s world-class, socially conscious educational goals to empower learners of all levels in their pursuits to become the next generation of citizens and leaders.
- OSC strategic goal 1: Enhance and expand the use of OER on campus through targeted outreach and support. [Pillar 1]
Goal 2: Implement innovative strategies to empower student learners and enrich their research experience across the continuum, from undergraduate education through professional practice.
- OSC strategic goal 2: Integrate Research Data Management (RDM) training into more courses and training programs. [Pillar 1, Goal 2]
Pillar 2: Research, Innovation, and Economic Development
Provide resources and services to create an environment that accelerates innovation, research, and economic development.
- OSC strategic goal 3: Update the OSC’s web site to better showcase its services and to provide more robust contact options. [Pillar 2]
Goal 1: Cultivate a collaborative library space that fosters cross-disciplinary innovation and leverages individual expertise.
- OSC strategic goal 4: Advocate for revisions to the UAB Copyright Policy to better align with the current higher education landscape. [Pillar 2, Goal 1]
- OSC strategic goal 5: Enhance guidance on and compliance support for the OSTP’s 2026 public access policy. [Pillar 2, Goal 1]
- OSC strategic goal 6: Promote the data catalog to UAB researchers, enabling easy discovery of and access to data across diverse sources. [Pillar 2, Goal 1]
Goal 2: Embrace technologies that champion innovation and foster greater access and usability.
- OSC strategic goal 7: Broaden support for open access publishing through Pressbooks or other digital publishing platforms. [Pillar 2, Goal 2]
Goal 3: Proactively seek out opportunities to support the research community through services that promote the creation and dissemination of knowledge.
- OSC strategic goal 8: Conduct satisfaction surveys of OSC users at the end of each academic term to better inform planning for services, staffing, and events. [Pillar 2, Goal 3]
- OSC strategic goal 9: Expand data visualization offerings and support, including the introduction of new online modules and training opportunities. [Pillar 2, Goal 3]
- OSC strategic goal 10: Promote and support the use of scholarly profile managers including UAB Scholars, Google Scholar, and ORCID, through targeted training. [Pillar 2, Goal 3]
- OSC strategic goal 11: Add a staff member to help manage the growth of content in Digital Commons. [Pillar 2, Goal 3]
- OSC strategic goal 12: Reinstate the UAB Libraries’ successful APC funding program to support open access publishing by funding APCs not included in one of the current transformative agreements. [Pillar 2, Goal 3]
- OSC strategic goal 13: Offer copyright and intellectual property guidance through one-on-one and small group meetings, and via Zoom, email, and telephone. [Pillar 2, Goal 3]
- OSC strategic goal 14: Expand support for discovering and analyzing research impact and citation metrics such as impact factors, altmetrics, H-index, and journal metrics. [Pillar 2, Goal 3]
- OSC strategic goal 15: Provide on-demand workshops, training sessions, and guest lectures on scholarly communication topics such as copyright, open access, and data management. [Pillar 2, Goal 3]
- OSC strategic goal 16: Record workshops and training sessions and make them available on the Digital Commons platform for convenient asynchronous access. [Pillar 2, Goal 3]
- OSC strategic goal 17: Integrate Research Data Management (RDM) training into more courses. [Pillar 2, Goal 3]
- OSC strategic goal 18: Establish and promote a series of regular scholarly communication events for each academic term including Open Access Week (fall term), Spring Webinar Series (spring term), and Copyright Bootcamp (summer term). [Pillar 2, Goal 3]
- OSC strategic goal 19: Integrate Digital Commons records into Alma to enhance discoverability. [Pillar 2, Goal 3]
- OSC strategic goal 20: Promote Digital Commons to key UAB groups to raise awareness and encourage content submission. [Pillar 2, Goal 3]
- OSC strategic goal 21: Simplify the Digital Commons submission process by adding an online self-submission form. [Pillar 2, Goal 3]
- OSC strategic goal 22: Promote Digital Commons as the campus repository for learning objects. [Pillar 2, Goal 3]
- OSC strategic goal 23: Promote and leverage Digital Commons' journal publishing platform for campus publications. [Pillar 2, Goal 3]
Pillar 3: Community Engagement
Engage actively with the university community and beyond by fostering collaboration, promoting access to information, and enhancing lifelong learning.
- OSC strategic goal 24: Offer educational opportunities on scholarly communication topics through state and regional library organizations. [Pillar 3]
- OSC strategic goal 25: Record OSC co-sponsored webinars and make them available on the Digital Commons platform for convenient asynchronous access. [Pillar 3]
Goal 1: Strengthen relationships with campus departments, student organizations, alumni associations, and local community organizations to understand their information needs in order to provide relevant services and promote information and health literacy.
- OSC strategic goal 26: Identity collections for Digital Commons that will appeal to a broad community audience. [Pillar 3, Goal 1]
- OSC strategic goal 27: Enhance access to and visibility of OSC statistics through interactive data dashboards. [Pillar 3, Goal 1]
- OSC strategic goal 28: Add a staff member to lead the expansion of data visualization support. [Pillar 3, Goal 1]