News

Big Ten Academic Alliance Renews Support for MIT Press’s Direct to Open, Driving Open Access to 80 New Monographs in 2025

Jan 16, 2025, 11:53 AM

The Big Ten Academic Alliance proudly announces its renewed three-year commitment to the MIT Press’s Direct to Open (D2O) program. This innovative initiative, which has successfully reached its funding goal for 2025, will open access to 80 new scholarly monographs and edited collections, further advancing the global public knowledge commons.

10 Years Later: Dr. Brian Burt’s Mission to Transform STEM Pathways for Black Males

Dec 20, 2024, 15:08 PM

In 2014, the Big Ten Academic Alliance highlighted Dr. Brian Burt, then an emerging scholar. Now, a decade later, we reconnect with Dr. Burt, now a Full Professor and Director of Wisconsin's Equity & Inclusion Lab (Wei LAB) at the University of Wisconsin-Madison, to explore how his early experiences have shaped his current work. His commitment to supporting Black males in STEM has culminated in the groundbreaking Black Males in Engineering (BME) project, aimed at addressing the underrepresentation of Black males in STEM fields.

Big Ten Academic Alliance Groups Mobilize to Further Digital Accessibility

Aug 5, 2024, 12:10 PM

Preparing to respond to the new Title II accessibility regulations, several peer communities banded together to form Big Ten Academic Alliance Accessibility Collaboration. Partnering across the consortium are the IT Accessibility Group, ADA Coordinators, Learning Technology Leaders, the Library Accessibility Group, and others.

Big Ten Academic Alliance Welcomes UCLA, USC, Oregon and Washington

Aug 2, 2024, 11:02 AM

The Big Ten Academic Alliance is excited to welcome the University of California Los Angeles (UCLA), the University of Southern California (USC), the University of Oregon, and the University of Washington into the nation's premier consortium of leading research universities. For over 65 years, the world-class institutions of the Big Ten have advanced their academic missions, generated unique opportunities for students and faculty, and served the common good by sharing expertise, leveraging campus resources, and collaborating on innovative programs.

Big Ten Academic Alliance + Next Generation Library Publishing Announce the Launch of a Pilot Project

Jul 24, 2024, 09:51 AM

The Big Ten Academic Alliance (BTAA) is excited to announce a partnership with the Next Generation Library Publishing (NGLP) project. This collaboration aims to test and enhance infrastructure solutions for academy-owned scholarly publishing programs that are open source, community-led, and rooted in academic values. The pilot project will create a unified discovery layer for the diverse publishing platforms of participating libraries, presenting them as a single, shared collection of open access materials.

Big Ten Academic Alliance libraries are now live with OCLC Resource Sharing for Groups

Jun 17, 2024, 11:28 AM

OCLC is partnering with the Big Ten Academic Alliance (BTAA) to advance development of OCLC Resource Sharing for Groups, a new solution that reimagines resource sharing with a focus on library groups and consortia. OCLC and the BTAA are working together to support the evolution of BTAA's UBorrow service, which offers access to more than 90 million books from the collections of 15 university libraries and the Center for Research Libraries, as part of OCLC's Resource Sharing for Groups.

Maurice York Appointed Director of Library Initiatives

May 5, 2020, 11:00 AM

BTAA and ASERL Announce Library Accessibility Partnership

Aug 1, 2019, 09:34 AM

The Big Ten Academic Alliance (BTAA) and the Association of Southeastern Research Libraries (ASERL) have entered into a two-year partnership to advance accessibility for library electronic resources, with the goal of providing equal access to information for all library users. Since 2016, the BTAA has been conducting third-party evaluations of electronic resource platforms and collections, publicly posting the evaluations for review by vendors and libraries.

Less Commonly Taught and Indigenous Languages the Focus of $2.5 Million Mellon Grant

Jul 23, 2019, 10:29 AM

This is the second Mellon grant received by the LCTL Partnership, led by the Center for Language Teaching Advancement (CeLTA) at Michigan State University, to facilitate the teaching of less commonly taught languages at all Big 10 universities in partnership with the Big Ten Academic Alliance.

Sustaining Values and Scholarship: A Statement by the Provosts of the Big Ten Academic Alliance

Jun 10, 2019, 09:49 AM

The Big Ten Academic Alliance continues its advocacy for a sustainable and open ecosystem of publication. Collectively, our institutions’ more than 50,000 faculty are supported by over $10 billion (2017) in research funding, and our institutions have similarly invested significantly in our capacity to further our missions to advance knowledge. Together, we produce roughly 15% of the research publications in the United States.

2019 BTAA/Smithsonian Institution Fellowship Awards Announced

Jun 14, 2018, 11:32 AM

The Big Ten Academic Alliance is proud to announce the 2019 BTAA/Smithsonian Institution Fellowship awardees.

OmniSOC: First-of-its-Kind Higher Education Joint Cybersecurity Operations Center Launches

Mar 21, 2018, 09:28 AM

Indiana University (IU), Northwestern University, Purdue University, Rutgers University and the University of Nebraska-Lincoln announce the launch and activation of OmniSOC, a specialized, sector-based cyber Security Operations Center (SOC) that provides trusted, rapid, actionable cyber intelligence to its members.

Op-Ed by IRIS PIs on how Tax bill would imperil nation’s innovation, future

Dec 15, 2017, 10:47 AM

In a piece in the Columbus Dispatch on December 14, 2017, IRIS PI Bruce Weinberg, with IRIS PI co-authors Julia Lane and Jason Owen-Smith, discuss the value of research spending and harmful portions of the tax bill passed by the House.

Barbara McFadden Allen on: Is College Worth It?

Feb 3, 2017, 11:46 AM

In Is College Worth It? Experts Pick Sides, Barbara McFadden Allen, Big Ten Academic Alliance Executive Director, joins a discussion with chancellors, college presidents, and CEOs to debate the return of investment on a college degree.

Mark Sandler wins 2017 Hugh C. Atkinson Memorial Award

Feb 2, 2017, 12:01 PM

Mark Sandler, former Big Ten Academic Alliance Director of Library Initiatives, has been awarded the 2017 Hugh C. Atkinson Memorial Award.

Katherine Galvin Named New Big Ten Academic Alliance Director of Programs

Dec 1, 2016, 12:04 PM

The Big Ten Academic Alliance is delighted to announce that Katherine Galvin has been appointed as the Director of Programs, effective January 3, 2017.

New Name Leads to Greater Awareness

Nov 2, 2016, 10:57 AM

The Committee on Institutional Cooperation became the Big Ten Academic Alliance on July 1, 2016 and the benefits of this name change are already resulting in a greater awareness of the organization and its programs.

Barbara McFadden Allen to Retire September, 2017

Sep 15, 2016, 14:08 PM

Barbara McFadden Allen, the longtime Executive Director of the Big Ten Academic Alliance, has announced that she will be retiring from her position in September 2017.

Big Ten Academic Alliance's Professorial Advancement Initiative Featured in the Chronicle of Higher Education

Sep 12, 2016, 12:33 PM

The Chronicle of Higher Education's Wider Spectrum series has highlighted the transformational work of the Big Ten Academic Alliance's Professorial Advancement initiative

MSU to lead Big Ten Academic Alliance multi-university language learning effort

Aug 3, 2016, 11:37 AM

Michigan State University will use a three-year $1.2 million grant from The Andrew W. Mellon Foundation to lead a Big Ten Academic Alliance multi-university research project to improve the teaching of less commonly taught languages, or LCTLs.