Open Access News

News from the open access movement


Monday, September 29, 2008

Another call for OA to Australian research

Colin Steele, Open Access to Australia's research, Canberra Times, September 29, 2008.  Excerpt:

Last week I spoke at the major Open Access conference in Brisbane at the Stamford Plaza Hotel, which attracted over 200 attendees from Australia and overseas....

While the previous Howard government [in Australia] had an Information Accessibility statement relatively little effort was made to implement it, compared to technological infrastuctures, yet the costs of the former in cultural change practice were/are relatively low.

The establishment of an "Australian Information Commons" through Open Access to research will provide immeasurable benefit not only for Australian society but also for the dissemination of Australian research globally. It is also clear from the Cutler Innovation and other reports,such as the Productivity Commission report in 2007, that freeing Australian knowledge is a greater aid to productivity returns than locking it away knowledge in patents and IP protection.  Carr's statement, plus the whole of government approach on public funding, public good, public access should provide the final impetus for change.

The conference concluded that a major step forward would be for all of Australia's universities to make their annual research publications available in open access in full text, wherever possible.