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Open access in Australia

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Open access (OA) to academic publications has seen extensive growth in Australia since the first open access university repository was established in 2001 and OA is a fundamental part of the scholarly publishing and research landscape in Australia.[1] There are open access policies at the two major research funders: The National Health and Medical Research Council (NHMRC) and Australian Research Council (ARC) and around half of Australian Universities have an OA policy or statement. Open Access Australasia (formerly The Australasian Open Access Strategy Group), the Council of Australian University Librarians (CAUL), and the Australian Library and Information Association (ALIA) are advocates for Open Access and related issues in Australia.

History

Timeline of key events

2001: ANU became Australia's first university to establish an open repository for ePrints[2]

2003: QUT was the first university in the world to mandate open access for all of its scholarly works[3]

2010: CAUL released a Statement on Open Scholarship and the Australian Government made a Declaration of Open Government.[4]

2012: The NHMRC's Open Access Policy took effect.[5]

2013: The ARC's OA policy took effect making all ARC Discovery projects from 2014 comply.

2014: ALIA adopted a full open access policy.[6]

2016: The Australian Productivity Commission report on the Intellectual Property system recommended that all federal, state and territory governments "implement an open access policy for publicly-funded research".[7]

2017: A joint policy statement recommending making Australia's publicly funded research outputs F.A.I.R. OA was endorsed by ALIA, APO, Open Data Institute, Creative Commons Australia, CAUL, National and State Libraries Australia, Knowledge Unlatched & Australasian Research Management Society.

Australian institutions were involved in some of the early developments in the Open Access movement, including the first university to mandate open access to its research outputs in 2003.[3] Australian research funding agencies introduced open access policies in 2013-14, however caveats in these policies led to low effect as they were not monitored or mandatory.[8] As of 2020, Australian institutions lag behind those of other countries, especially Europe and Latin America.[9]

A significant change occurred in 2021, when the NHMRC announced a draft update to its OA policy that would remove previous caveats and mandate that all funded research outputs be made OA under a creative commons license without embargo.[10][11] This was done in response to the Plan S recommendations developed by an international coalition of research funders.[11]

Advocacy

Various organisations and interest groups are engaged in advocating for greater access to research publications, data and other outputs in Australia. Campaigns have focused on developing and implementing changes to education and research policy, practice and infrastructure across higher education, government, civil society and commercial sectors. Open Access Australasia was established in 2013 as a membership-based organisation supported by a number of Australian universities to promote OA and the F.A.I.R principles[12]. It provides strategic advocacy and operational support to universities, research institutes, funders and government organisations. It is currently hosted by UNSW and based at Queensland University of Technology.

ALIA, CAUL and Open Access Australasia, together with universities and libraries around Australia promote OA awareness and action during Open Access Week in October each year.

Publishing and hosting

As of 2021, 117 open access journals were published in Australia according to DOAJ.[13] These are published by a mixture of Australian-based publishers[14] as well as international publishing houses.[13] Similarly, there are 75 open repositories hosted in Australia as of 2021 according to ROAR.[15][16]

Policies

The most influential OA policies in Australia are those set by governmental research funders (the ARC, NHMRC, and MRFF) as well as individual universities and other research institutions. These policies vary widely, and are collated in a directory by Open Access Australasia.[17]

References

  1. ^ Kennan, M. A., & Kingsley, D. (2009). The state of the nation: A snapshot of Australian institutional repositories. First Monday, 14(2), 1-23.
  2. ^ Steele, Colin (2013-11-06). "Open access in Australia: an odyssey of sorts?". Insights. 26 (3): 282. doi:10.1629/2048-7754.91. ISSN 2048-7754.
  3. ^ a b "Welcome". Open Access and Research Conference 2013 (PDF). 2014-01-27. p. 1. Archived from the original (PDF) on 2014-01-27. Retrieved 2018-05-04.
  4. ^ "Declaration of Open Government | Department of Finance". Finance.gov.au. 2010-07-16. Archived from the original on 2018-06-14. Retrieved 2018-06-13.
  5. ^ "NHMRC Open Access Policy (previously also referred to as the NHMRC Policy on the Dissemination of Research Findings) | National Health and Medical Research Council". Nhmrc.gov.au. 2018-01-15. Archived from the original on 2018-03-29. Retrieved 2018-06-13.
  6. ^ "ALIA open access statement". Australian Library and information Association. 24 February 2014. Retrieved 4 May 2018.
  7. ^ Productivity Commission Inquiry. (2016). Intellectual Property Arrangements. Report Number 7. Recommendation 16.1, p.38
  8. ^ Montgomery, Lucy. "2020 locked in shift to open access publishing, but Australia is lagging". The Conversation. Retrieved 2021-05-01.
  9. ^ Huang, Chun-Kai (Karl); Neylon, Cameron; Hosking, Richard; Montgomery, Lucy; Wilson, Katie S; Ozaygen, Alkim; Brookes-Kenworthy, Chloe (2020-09-14). Deathridge, Julia; Rodgers, Peter; Kramer, Bianca (eds.). "Evaluating the impact of open access policies on research institutions". eLife. 9: e57067. doi:10.7554/eLife.57067. ISSN 2050-084X.
  10. ^ "Open Access Policy". nhmrc.gov.au. NHMRC. Retrieved 2021-05-01.{{cite web}}: CS1 maint: url-status (link)
  11. ^ a b Kelso, Anne (2021-04-13). "Targeted consultation: NHMRC's draft Open Access Policy". nhmrc.gov.au. NHMRC.{{cite web}}: CS1 maint: url-status (link)
  12. ^ "About Us | Open Access Australasia". Retrieved 2021-05-14.
  13. ^ a b DOAJ. "Directory of Open Access Journals published in Australia". Retrieved 2021-05-01.
  14. ^ "Open Journals". oaaustralasia.org. Open Access Australasia. Retrieved 2021-05-02.{{cite web}}: CS1 maint: url-status (link)
  15. ^ "Repositories in Australia". roar.eprints.org. Registry of Open Access Repositories. Retrieved 2021-05-01.{{cite web}}: CS1 maint: url-status (link)
  16. ^ "Open Repositories". oaaustralasia.org. Open Access Australasia. Retrieved 2021-05-02.{{cite web}}: CS1 maint: url-status (link)
  17. ^ "Open Policies". Open Access Australasia. Retrieved 2021-05-01.{{cite web}}: CS1 maint: url-status (link)
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