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Articles on Scholarly publishing

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Making Australian research free for everyone to read sounds ideal. But the Chief Scientist’s open-access plan isn’t risk-free

The idea is publicly funded Australian research should be free for the public to read when published. But if it means taking money from universities struggling for research funding, that poses risks.
For now, it’s going to be trickier for the University of California community to access some academic journals. Michelle/Flickr

University of California’s showdown with the biggest academic publisher aims to change scholarly publishing for good

The UC libraries let their Elsevier journal subscriptions lapse and now the publisher has cut their online access. It’s a painful milestone in the fight UC hopes may transform how journals get paid.
Libraries subscribe digitally to academic journals – and are left with nothing in the stacks when the contract expires. Eric Chan/Flickr

University of California’s break with the biggest academic publisher could shake up scholarly publishing for good

Digital publishing hasn’t resulted in the free and open access to information many envisioned. Universities are increasingly fed up with a system they see as charging them for their own scholars’ labor.
It’s one thing for a country’s academics to produce great research – but what’s the point if ordinary citizens can’t access it? Shutterstock

Why it’s getting harder to access free, quality academic research

South Africans’ access to important knowledge and research is incredibly limited. In this time of Open Access, why is this the case – and will it ever change?

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