Testifying to VCU Libraries’ deepening connections to the international movement to make educational materials more open, accessible and affordable, Scholarly Communications Librarian Hillary Miller has been named to two national and international organizations.

SPARC (the Scholarly Publishing and Academic Resources Coalition) invited Miller to join its Open Education Advisory Group that advises SPARC’s open education team to ensure its work reflects the evolving needs of its membership of some 200 research libraries. Miller is one of six new members who will serve a three-year term through August 2022. “This is a distinguished group and Hillary is the only Virginia representative,” said Dean and VCU University Librarian John E. Ulmschneider.    

SPARC works to enable the open sharing of research outputs and educational materials in order to democratize access to knowledge, accelerate discovery, and increase the return on our investment in research and education. As a catalyst for action, SPARC focuses on collaborating with other stakeholders—including authors, publishers, libraries, students, funders, policymakers and the public—to build on the opportunities created by the Internet, promoting changes to both infrastructure and culture needed to make open the default for research and education.     

Miller is also a new recruit to the Open Education Policy Forum, a fellowship program for advocates working on the development and implementation of global open education policies. The 4th Open Education Policy Forum begins with a two-day in-person workshop in Warsaw, Poland in October and will continue with a six-month policy incubation process, during which Miller will work towards the goal of supporting open education policy in Virginia. The Open Education Policy Forum is a shared effort of Centrum Cyfrowe, SPARC and the Open Education Consortium.