The University of Tasmania is preparing to implement an OA mandate recommended by its Research College Board. (Thanks to Arthur Sale.) Yesterday Jo Laybourn-Parry, the UT Pro Vice-Chancellor for Research, sent this message to the UT community:
The Research College Board has recommended that all publications from 2007 onwards be mandated for entry into a UTAS digital repository such as ePrints. I am keen for this to happen.
We are aware that the Labor Government's proposed Excellence in Research for Australia (ERA) will concentrate on metrics such as citations, and ensuring that our publications are publicly available through the repository will help position us positively. The earlier the articles are in the repository, the more citations they will attract, especially in the first few months after publication.
Many of you have already placed all or some of your publications into ePrints.
I am particularly concerned that you are not put in the position of entering data twice, and I am aware that you will soon have completed entering your 2007 publications into PES [Publication Entry System]. Therefore I have asked our technical staff to work on an automatic upload of all 2007 PES entries to ePrints. This will take place over the next month....
The open access movement:
Putting peer-reviewed scientific and scholarly literature
on the internet. Making it available free of charge and
free of most copyright and licensing restrictions.
Removing the barriers to serious research.
I recommend the OA tracking project (OATP) as the best way to stay on top of new OA developments. You can read the OATP feed on a blog-like web page or subscribe to it by RSS, email, or Twitter. You can also help build the feed by tagging new developments you encounter.
