OA Developments in Australasia

The NHMRC Open Access policy was updated in 2018

The ARC Open Access Policy was updated in 2017

The ARC Open Access Policy was updated – April 21 2015.

The updated Policy now specifies that publication metadata should include the ARC Project ID and list the ARC as the funding source, as well as other relevant information. Any future Funding Rules and Funding Agreements will include this requirement.

The Group of 8 Librarians has developed a Statement on Open Access to Research Outputs.

The statement notes that the Go8 Universities will:

  • develop governance frameworks, services and infrastructure (e.g. institutional repositories, research information management systems) to facilitate the broadest possible dissemination of, long term access to and preservation of research outputs;
  • assist grant funding bodies to continue to develop their open access policies;
  • provide open publishing platforms to facilitate the rapid and open communication of research;
  • facilitate open access to publicly funded research outputs; and engage with the publishing community to achieve sustainable models of open access publishing.

ANU updates its Open Access Policy and procedure – 1 August 2014

ANU has supported open access through policies for some time and established the e first e-print repository in an Australian university in late 2001. Much has changed in the past decade.

The University now requires deposit a copy of most research outputs to the University research repository within 12 months of publication. The policy and associated procedures for research and education materials have been discussed extensively through university committees, and reflect our commitment to broad dissemination of knowledge and the changing landscape of publication including recent directives from ARC, NHMRC and other funders.

Victoria University partners with CLOCKSS – 4 April 2014

The CLOCKSS Archive  has partnered with Victoria University in Melbourne, Australia, to preserve their ejournals and ebooks in CLOCKSS’s geographically and geopolitically distributed network of redundant archive nodes, located at 12 major research libraries around the world. This action provides for content to be freely available to everyone after a “trigger event” and ensures an author’s work will be maximally accessible and useful over time.

CAUL updates its statement on open scholarship – 26 March 2014

CAUL has an Open Scholarship page which covers developments such as open access, open science, open education and other “open” initiatives.  CAUL’s Statement on Open Scholarship explores the idea that the free flow of information and ideas underpins excellence in scholarship in detail.

Open access policy for UoW – 17 March 2014

The new policy supports green open access and includes all research outputs, including non peer reviewed ones. The news release about the new policy notes about 6,000 UoW publications are downloaded from the University’s Research Online platform daily.  The repository contains 46% of research published in 2013 available full-text. The repository is ranked 97th internationally (top 1%), having risen from 292nd place since 2011.

New OA journal for Flinders University – February 2014

Writers in Conversation is an international online open-access literary journal specialising in well-researched, in-depth interviews with writers in all literary genres (including criticism), concentrating on their work, their ideas and related matters, to be published jointly by Flinders University and the University of Central Lancashire. The journal will be published twice each year, in February and August.

NHMRC revises its OA Policy webpage – 25 February 2014

The NHMRC have expanded their advice and information about their Open Access Policy on the  Dissemination of Research Findings. There is more detailed information on how to report the open access status of published funded work, plus a new useful Guide for Authors.

ALIA adopts open access policy – 24 February 2014

The Australian Library and Information Association (ALIA) has adopted a full open access policy. This means they will provide full access for the majority of their own reports, conference papers and other grey literature; member-only access for certain unique, high value materials, and green open access for our scholarly journals. ALIA supports Australian libraries in their efforts to work towards open access.

New open access journal – 12 February 2014

Victoria University recently launched a new open access journal,  the Victoria University Law and Justice Journal (VULJ). The journal uses the Online Journal Systems (OJS) platform which enables journal editors to manage the stages of issue creation from author submission through to publication. The University offers technical set-up,  and support with referencing, indexing, peer review models, copyright, licensing, ISSN and DOI registration. It is assumed that peer review and editorial tasks are performed by the journal’s editorial committee/board.

New funding rules for ARC – 8 January 2014

The Funding Rules for ARC Discovery Projects for funding commencing in 2015 have removed the two percent of non salaried funding that can be used for publishing (all requests must be justified in the proposal form). The rules specifically state proposals and ARC-funded research projects must comply with the ARC Open Access Policy. The rules also emphasise the importance of data management planning and “strongly encourages the depositing of data arising from a Project in an appropriate publicly accessible subject and/or institutional repository”. The rules are standard across the Australian Laureate Fellowships, Discovery Early Career Researcher Award and Discovery Indigenous schemes

CAUL endorses AusGOAL principles on data – 21 November 2013

CAUL has agreed to support AusGOAL’s objectives by:
– Collaborating with researchers and research institutions to raise awareness of the
principles, practice and benefits of AusGOAL’s standardised data licensing.
– Working with researchers and university research offices to implement appropriate
licences.
– Collaborating and engaging with the Australian National Data Service’s programs
related to data licensing and intellectual property.
– Developing infrastructure components, including institutional data repositories, that
embrace best practice approaches to data management.

Page last updated 19 March 2018