Coming Soon: CDR Diversity, Equity and Inclusion Assessment

Since 2017, the CDR Open Access Implementation Team has developed the Content Liberation initiatives to increase the amount of openly available scholarly content in the CDR. A description of the Content Liberation initiative and project updates are available for download:

• Content Liberation Project Summary
• Content Liberation Update, August 2018
• Content Liberation Update, August 2019
• Content Liberation Update, August 2020

While the Content Liberation initiatives have greatly increased the amount of scholarship in the CDR, we have wondered if they do so equitably. For example, one project focuses on highly cited authors, which could be affected by the observed gender bias in citation counts. Last year, we focused on adding content from researchers working on research related to COVID-19, which could be affected by underrepresentation of minorities in the sciences. Therefore, we’ve decided to do a preliminary diversity, equity and inclusion assessment on the Content Liberation projects.

In this assessment, we aim to address three questions:

1. Does CDR content fully represent the scholarly output of the university? 
2. Do CDR’s initiatives and content sources ameliorate or replicate existing inequities in the academy? 
3. How can CDR bring attention to the work of marginalized groups? 

The assessment is underway and we aim to have a report ready to share later this year.