In 2022-23, librarians at the University of California, Santa Cruz (UCSC) conducted a mixed methods research study to understand graduate students’ publishing needs. We learned that publishing is often unevenly taught to graduate students who expressed a need for more comprehensive publishing guidance. In addition to learning that students miss opportunities when they are unfamiliar with publishing, interview and survey data demonstrated that students publish at different times and need just-in-time, asynchronous resources to learn about publishing as they navigate the process. Consequently, the Scholarly Communication Librarian shifted from teaching synchronous workshops to creating accessible, discipline-agnostic resources from which graduate students may learn about publishing whenever needed. In Fall 2024, she launched UCSC’s Publishing Tip Series–a weekly e-mail series shared alongside identical podcast episodes–succesfully reaching 80 graduate students and other participants. The second season in Fall 2025 reached 116 participants. This session focuses on the next step: creating an open educational resource (OER) to offer a centralized tool for graduate students to learn about publishing. Simultaneously, UCSC’s OER Librarian has been investigating infrastructure for OER and researching how OER may further student belonging. This Publishing OER, which is in early development, brings an important opportunity to collaborate around OER platforms and creation. Our session describes the goals for the Publishing OER, which include centering student experiences and demystifying the hidden curriculum of publishing, and the value of our collaboration, including takeaways for collaboration with faculty on OER. The session is useful for participants who have ideas for what new authors need to learn and want to make their publishing literacy outreach more widely accessible. We also present one model for Scholarly Communication and OER librarians partnering to achieve shared but distinct goals. Participants will have a chance to engage with and contribute to the Publishing OER.
