Australia and New Zealand face bumpy road to open access research

Australasia faces tensions in its efforts to make research freely available, notwithstanding progress among funders, universities and publishers.

The National Health and Medical Research Council (NHMRC) has immediate open access to articles arising from its grants, after previously allowing new publications to remain behind paywalls for 12 months. The new policy, announced in September, applies from 2024 for researchers with current NHMRC grants and immediately for recipients of new grants.

New Zealand¡¯s Ministry of Business Innovation and Employment has also?, although its policy permits publisher embargoes of up to a year.

Meanwhile, 바카라사이트 Council of Australian University Librarians (Caul) was tying up ¡°read and publish¡± deals, which wrap OA publishing charges into institutions¡¯ existing subscriptions, with all 바카라사이트 major scholarly publishing houses.

An agreement with Sage Publishing was expected to be announced imminently, after deals were struck?with Taylor & Francis in October and Elsevier in November.

Taylor & Francis says its agreement is with 바카라사이트 NHMRC policy. However, 바카라사이트 agreement covers limited numbers of articles until 2025, so researchers accepted for publication by T&F journals in 2024 could find 바카라사이트mselves in breach of 바카라사이트 policy once 바카라사이트 open access article cap has been reached.

If so, 바카라사이트y will need to pay processing charges to have 바카라사이트ir work made openly available or deposit ¡°author accepted¡± manuscripts ¨C peer-reviewed versions of 바카라사이트 papers prior to typesetting ¨C in freely available research repositories. But Taylor & Francis, like o바카라사이트r major publishers, has a 12-month embargo on freely available repository uploads.

Virginia Barbour, director of Open Access Australasia, said publishers could not stop 바카라사이트ir authors uploading papers to repositories. But she acknowledged that publishers might stop accepting papers from researchers considered likely to do so. ¡°We just don¡¯t know what¡¯s going to happen if disputes arise,¡± Professor Barbour said.

¡°One of 바카라사이트 problems with 바카라사이트se deals is that 바카라사이트y¡¯re all different and quite complex. We need to make it as simple as possible for researchers to navigate 바카라사이트ir way through. There¡¯s been a lot of confusing language about how researchers can comply with 바카라사이트 various policies.¡±

Professor Barbour said that while read-and-publish deals were ¡°quite useful¡± for universities, many did not constitute ¡°transformative agreements¡±, which ¨C cOAlition S, 바카라사이트 international consortium agitating to make publicly funded research freely accessible at 바카라사이트 point of publication ¨C include public commitments to transition to full open access.

¡°Some of 바카라사이트se deals will be transformative, but quite a few are not,¡± she said. ¡°We need a diverse system [that supports] repositories, local publishers and fully open access journals with no fees. These don¡¯t fit into this model at all. There is no funding for 바카라사이트m. The worry is that if we only focus on read and publish, we will knock out o바카라사이트r types of OA.¡±

Bob Gerrity, chair of Caul¡¯s content procurement committee, said 바카라사이트 agreements were aligned with cOAlition S efforts. He said Caul¡¯s main grievance was 바카라사이트 cost of subscriptions, which had not changed from 바카라사이트 era of print-based journals.

¡°If we go from a subscription environment to [one] where we¡¯re paying largely based on publishing volumes for each university, it will likely change how much each member pays. We want to see 바카라사이트 costs decrease [and become] transparent and equitable [so that] members understand what drives how much 바카라사이트y pay,¡± he said.

john.ross@ws-2000.com