Open access to COVID-19 research accelerated the development of solutions. The urgency of climate change demands the same approach, but more than half of Australian research is still behind paywalls.
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Articles on Open access publications
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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.
Expectations that academics raise funds themselves and aim to publish in certain ‘quality’ publications are shaping research and where it is published.
In many other countries, a majority of research publications are now open access, but the system of paying for access still dominates academic publishing in Australia.
The notion that a respected publishing house can be replaced by open access publishing is disproved by examining other recent examples, such as the now-closed University of Adelaide Press.
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.
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.
In our institutions of higher education and our research labs, scholars first produce, then buy back, their own content. With the costs rising and access restricted, something’s got to give.
A critical part of attaining universal health coverage is access to published research.
Top contributors
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Program Lead, Innovation in Knowledge Communication, Curtin University
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University Librarian and Vice Provost for Digital Scholarship, University of California, Davis
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Professor of Law, University of Sydney
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Lecturer, Department of Media and Communications, University of Sydney
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Senior Lecturer, School of Law, Queensland University of Technology
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Professor, Faculty of Law, UNSW Sydney
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Senior lecturer in the Division of Emergency Medicine, University of Cape Town
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Professor of Research Communications, Curtin University
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Dean of Libraries and Vice President for Information Technology, Colorado State University
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Lecturer in Writing and Literature, Deakin University
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Manager, Academic Services, University of Sydney
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Lecturer, Newcastle Law School, University of Newcastle
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Senior Research Fellow, Centre for Culture and Technology, Curtin University
