In celebration of International Open Access Week, join the University Libraries for an online panel on COVID-19 research. Open access to research has been in the spotlight as the world seeks to find a vaccine and better treatments for COVID-19. UNLV faculty are contributing to this effort by publishing research openly, sharing critical information with their communities about public health, the economy, and more, and by providing analysis of what it means to conduct rapid research and meaningful distillation of that research. To discuss these issues, the UNLV University Libraries are bringing together three speakers from the UNLV faculty:

• Dr. Ge Lin Kan (Ph.D) co-authored an open access article “Reduction of Secondary Transmission of SARS-CoV-2 in Households by Face Mask Use, Disinfection and Social Distancing: A Cohort Study in Beijing, China” published in BMJ Global Health
• Dr. Jaewon Lim (Ph.D) authored a publicly accessible policy brief on “The Economic Impact of COVID-19: Rebuilding the Las Vegas Economy” for the Lincy Institute.
• Aidy Weeks (MSLIS, AHIP), will discuss the challenges of doing systematic reviews with COVID-19 literature. She recently published “I Don’t Think It Means What You Think It Means: How COVID-19 Systematic Reviews Don’t Fit the Mold” in MLAConnect.

Each speaker will talk briefly about their recent work and then the Scholarly Communication Initiatives Department will moderate a discussion and questions and answers on open access publishing - the why, the how, opportunities, challenges, and more in the context of the time we live in where sharing advances in research is critical to combating a pandemic, but is not without its challenges.