Universities already stockpile academic papers so they can report their output to the government. But stockpiling the wrong version of the paper can restrict their right to make the paper available on open access.
Flickr/Gideon Burton
Providing equitable access to the findings of scholarly research is an expensive and vexed business, as many recent stories here on The Conversation have highlighted. Open access offers a way to freely…
A new generation of architects is needed to build our cities.
Flickr/MorBCN
The “future” is something which manifests nowhere more potently than in our cities. Yet a substantial transformation over the past twenty years in the way cities are being made – both in terms of their…
Breaking free of the stranglehold of academic publishers holds appeal – but what are the dangers?
Flickr
There are three tensions in the field of academic publishing (1) who pays to publish research? (2) who decides what gets published? and (3) who takes any profits? In the traditional model, based on publishing…
Frustration with copyright restrictions placed on scholarly work in many journals has helped fuel the Creative Commons and Open Access movements.
Flickr/TilarX
Back in 1991, in the very earliest days of the internet, a group of high energy physicists began sharing their findings on a Los Alamos-based online archive called Arxiv. Their early experiments in the…
A growing number of academic institutions are building free online databases of their scholarly output. But publication in a big name academic journal still holds cachet for most academics.
Flickr/mandiberg
As the cost of accessing academic journal articles increases, a growing number of academic institutions are building publicly accessible databases of scholarly work. But how much of a threat to the traditional…
How does the high cost of academic journal subscriptions impact the developing world?
Flickr/Book Aid International
Universities libraries in the developed world are struggling to pay academic journal subscription costs – so how can universities in developing countries hope to pay? In this Q+A, Professor Adam Habib…
ANU’s new Digital Collections database aims to make scholarly work freely accessible to anyone with an internet connection.
Flickr/justiceimages
As the cost of accessing academic journals soars, the Australian National University has launched a new free online database that allows anyone with an internet connection to read the latest scholarly…
Does the cost of academic journals stymie learning?
Flickr/the.Firebottle
The phrase ‘publish or perish’ is familiar to all academics, who face enormous pressure to have their work featured in the top academic journals. Career progression, job security and pay rises can depend…
Online activist Aaron Swartz has been accused of stealing more than 4 million journal articles from an MIT database.
Flickr/Joi
More than 18,000 journal articles have been posted on an illegal file-sharing website to protest the arrest of an online activist accused of stealing more than four million documents from a Massachusetts…
Exams aren’t the only way to turn out graduates ready for the world of work.
Flickr/Reality-check
The time has come to abolish university examinations. Just because something has been around a long time there’s no reason to assume it’s outdated. But in the case of exams that assumption would be right…
A perception that international students are mistreated in Australia has prompted rallies and helped drive down enrolments.
AAP
Failure to reverse a downturn in international student enrolments could cost billions to Australia’s GDP and over 45,000 jobs by the end of the decade, a report has found. International student enrolments…
When is comes to research, it seems quantity has become much more important than quality.
Flickr/Iscan
Imagine the following conversation between a finance academic and his or her supervisor during an annual performance review: Academic: So, do you think I am ready for a promotion? Supervisor: Well, I see…
The best and the brightest put themselves put themselves through an intellectual ordeal to end up here.
Flickr/Tejvan photos
The most feared exam in the world has been dropped. For over a century those hoping to study at All Souls College in Oxford opened an envelope with trepidation to discover just one word inside. They then…
The old system led to institutions urging their academics to write for the top-ranked academic journals only.
Håkan Dahlström, Flickr
The Australian government has dropped the contentious system of ranking academic journals and assessing academics based on their ability to publish in the top-ranked publications. Previously, journals…
Are Australian universities meeting their potential?
http://www.flickr.com/photos/joshmaz
“Australia’s universities, like its wine, are decent and dependable, but seldom excellent.” So said The Economist magazine, in a piece published online. We asked Australian tertiary education experts to…
Medical deans are calling for a 50% increase in federal funding for student places.
Flickr
Australia’s medical schools need a 50% increase in federal funding to boost the proportion of places available to domestic students and reduce their reliance on international fee-paying students, the peak…
The university funding system discourages research on volunteers like these men who are risking their lives to help their community.
Flickr/Rob Down Under
In Australian universities at the moment research is everything. They obsess over the rankings in the new ERA system which measures research performance. For academics publishing in the top journals isn’t…
Higher education and research largely escaped the budget cuts.
AAP
With its electoral support eroding, the federal government has been careful not to trigger frustration or disappointment in higher education and research. These have been largely Labor constituencies since…
International students are not fuelling immigration as much as first thought.
AAP/Tracey Nearmy
If you’re in politics, population matters. Rival studies on what constitutes a sustainable Australian population project wildly different statistics. But behind the figures are real people whose lives…